Like Two Sides Of A Coin
by Asuka's Knight
Summary: Ryou's newest Red Data DNA is accidentally injected into an unsuspecting tourist. Between newly sprouted cat ears, a cute catgirl and evil aliens, he's finding Tokyo to be more interesting than he had first expected. IchigoxOC in the later chapters
1. No Use In Crying Over Spilt Milkshake

**Like Two Sides Of A Coin**

**Written by Asuka's Knight**

Your standard disclaimer: I don't own Tokyo Mew Mew, nor do I make any money from it. Blah-Blah, yada-yada, I really don't think I need to be wasting your time with stuff like this so let's get right to the reason you decided to come here, namely the fic. Let me know what you think, and if there are any improvements you believe I can make. Oh yeah, and thanks for taking the time out to read it.

Unfortunately, I've only had experience with the dub, but I've kind of seen that using anything from the dub is likely to get me the ass-chewing of a lifetime so I'll try my best to use the original names and attacks, but if you could keep this in mind when you review, I'd be very thankful.

However, I am going to use everyone's dub ages except Keiichiro. This is just a personal preference, but I apologise if it offends anyone.

All my information regarding the Japanese names, attacks, ages et al came from Mew Mew Power Uncensored so I'm giving the credit where credit is due.

* * *

"Pleeease, Ryou! Can't I go home? This place is dead." Ichigo asked, clinging onto Ryou's leg as he tried to shake her off.

"You've still got thirty minutes left," He said, sounding annoyed. "You offered to work Mint's shift today."

"That's only because I need the money, and she didn't tell me that no one came in at this time of the day. Why do you even keep the cafe open?"

"Because that's what the sign outside says, we're open until six. So, no, you can't go home."

Realising the situation called for desperate measures, Ichigo decided to unleash the most devastating weapon in her arsenal: The puppy-dog eyes. "Have a heart, Ryou," She pleaded, stretching her brown eyes as large as she could while putting on the most beseeching expression she could muster.

It worked. "Alright, if a customer doesn't walk through that door in the next minute, I'll let you go."

Confident that she would soon be taking off her waitress outfit and heading home, Ichigo watched the seconds tick by on Ryou's watch. With three seconds left, the bell above the door tinkled. Feeling as though her legs were about to collapse, she turned towards the entrance and saw an older boy sitting down at a table.

Ryou seemed to find her discontent funny. "Better go tend to your customer, Ichigo. Only twenty-five minutes left to go." He walked into the back, but glanced over his shoulder one last time. "And chin up, your ears are showing."

Sullenly, she put her hat back on to hide her ears and walked over to the table. If this guy wanted a glass of water, or didn't leave a decent tip, he was going to end up as kitty-chow. He glanced up from the book he was reading and Ichigo got a good look at him. He had dark brown hair that lay in a thick tangle on his head, covering his ears and the better half of his forehead. A pair of calm blue eyes was looking at her with some interest. He looked reasonably fit, and wore comfortable clothes; a red shirt, a pair of jeans and a pair of white sneakers. Nevertheless there was something about him that she couldn't place. He looked like he should have been smiling; he just had one of those faces. But there was only a ghost of a smile, like someone had done a very bad job of painting over his usual expression.

"Welcome to cafe Mew Mew. My name is Ichigo, what can I get you?" She asked, hoping the annoyance she felt for him wasn't showing through in her voice.

"I'll have a Double-thick chocolate shake, please." He said and handed her back the menu he hadn't even looked at. Sighing in her mind but giving him a smile she hoped would get her a bigger tip, she took the menu and went to go place the order at the kitchen. While she waited for it to be prepared, she began collecting the plates and glasses from the other tables and stacked them all on the table next to the customer. Ryou was always complaining about how he had to go around gathering them himself, and she decided that even though he had enjoyed her discomfort maybe a little too much, she should try to look like an enthusiastic worker. She had just done the last table when Keiichiro called her to say the order was ready.

Ichigo took the glass and made her way to the table. Her only comfort was that the day was almost over, and that after this guy showing up, it couldn't get worse, could it?

Of course it could.

As she drew next to him, she tripped and for once her cat reflexes kicked in a little too late. She managed to prevent herself from taking a face-first dive onto the floor, but ended up dumping the entire glass of milk and ice-cream into her customer's lap.

"I'm sorry!" She said as he stood up, the milkshake dripping down the legs of his jeans. "Here I'll clean it up."

Ichigo hurriedly grabbed a napkin from the table next to him, unaware that it had been lying beneath a stack of plates. They both became very aware, however, as the whole heap crashed onto the floor.

The noise brought Ryou out of his study and Keiichiro from the kitchen. "What is going on he-?" Ryou began, but then he saw the shattered remains of about twenty plates on the floor, Ichigo standing right next to the devastation with a look that said she wished she was somewhere else and a young man, whose jeans were sporting a pattern he probably hadn't come in with, looking a little thunderstruck.

"Ichigo, what happened here?" Keiichiro asked, wondering how Ryou was going to react to this.

"It doesn't matter," Ryou said shortly and spoke to the customer. "I apologize for my waitresses' clumsiness. Unfortunately we're closing in a few minutes. When you decide to come here again, I'll make sure you get another drink free of charge." He turned to Ichigo. "Ichigo, these plates are coming out of your pocket. If you want to get them paid quickly, I'd suggest you stay after closing time and help Keiichiro clean up the kitchen. You can start tonight." When he had said his piece, he went back into the office

"I'll go get the broom." Keiichiro said quietly and back to the kitchen. This left Ichigo with the customer, who, not knowing what else to do, started picking up some of the broken pieces off of the floor.

"Would you please leave?" Ichigo asked him, trying to keep the anger in her voice down. This guy hadn't just ruined her day, but also the foreseeable future. She didn't even want to begin to think how long it was going to take to pay Ryou back for the dishes.

"I'm trying to help." It was a perfectly reasonable response, but unfortunately Ichigo didn't really feel very reasonable anymore.

"You've helped enough!" She yelled, taking a step towards him. "It's not enough that you messed up my chance to go home early, now I've got to take the little money I make here and pay back my boss for broken plates, plates that wouldn't have gotten broken in the first place if you had just picked another place to have your stupid milkshake! I don't want to take the chance that you're going to screw my day up any further, so just leave!"

At this point, Keiichiro came back and saved him from any more of the furious girl's wrath. "Ichigo, forget what Ryou said. You don't need to help me with anything in the kitchen tonight, just go and take off your uniform and go home. I'll have a talk with him about your paying for the dishes."

Wiping angry tears out of her eyes, Ichigo went into the locker room and began getting dressed in her normal clothes. A sleepy Masha emerged from her bag, but immediately came around when he saw his friend.

"Ichigo? What's wrong?"

"Nothing, Masha," She replied, trying to smile. "It's just been a really long, really bad day. But there's at least one thing I can look forward to: I'm pretty sure I've hit rock bottom so it can only get better from here on. Come on, we're going home."

When she left the locker room, the customer was gone. Only Keiichiro was still there, sweeping up the plates into a dustpan. He looked up as she came in and smiled.

"I've got some good news for you. You don't need to pay for the plates."

"Really?" She asked and hugged him. "Thanks for talking Ryou out of it. You do work fast."

"Actually," Keiichiro said and carried on with sweeping. "I didn't have anything to do with it. The customer who just left, he paid for them."

Ichigo's mouth dropped so low, any further and they would have had to wire it back. "What?"

"He asked me how much I thought they would cost to replace and when I gave him my estimate, he just handed me the money. I tried to give it back, but he wouldn't hear of it. He said that he didn't enjoy causing trouble for a pretty girl, and left."

"Oh," Now she was feeling kind of bad. "And after today, I don't think he'll be coming back. I wish I could just thank him for it."

"You still could," Keiichiro held out a book, which she recognized as the one the young man had been reading. "He left this here in his rush. I think he's one of those people who are pretty fond of their books it's got his address inside. It's on the way to your house, so you could go give it back to him as a peace offering."

Ichigo took the book and read the message inside. "If you happen to find this book, it means I've been an idiotic ass and left it somewhere. I'd appreciate it if you'd bring it back to me, and I'm willing to give you a reward for playing the Good Samaritan (Believe me, it's more than you'd get if you tried to sell it)."

"Okay, thanks." She was about to leave when he called her back. "What is it?"

"Ryou wanted you to leave Masha behind tonight, so he could just make sure he's still working alright."

"Oh," She opened her bag. "You heard him Masha, time for a tune-up." The pink robot floated out and down to the basement lab. "I've got to get going if I still want to stop by my rescuer's house and make it home before dark. Bye, Keiichiro, see you tomorrow."

In a considerably better mood, Ichigo left the cafe.

* * *

Ryou didn't look up from his computer as Keiichiro came into the basement. "Is Ichigo still here?"

"No, she's gone home. Ryou, were you really going to make her pay for the dishes?"

Ryou sighed. "I guess not. I just wanted to make sure she'd be more careful."

Chuckling, Keiichiro leaned against the wall next to Ryou's desk. "If the male customers keep giving her free passes, I don't think she ever will." When he saw Ryou looking at him with a quizzical expression, he explained what had happened.

"He didn't want to make trouble for a pretty girl." Ryou mused as he typed away. "That's so corny."

"Well, Ichigo didn't think so." Keiichiro saw what Ryou was working on and frowned. "You're researching another Red Data animal? Don't you think we should find the fifth girl first?"

"I just think it's good to be been pretty quiet for the past few weeks, and I don't like it."

"Interesting choice."

"What do you mean?"

"No, I just think that it's curious you've picked another feline as the Red Data animal whose DNA we're going to use."

"Are you implying something?" Ryou asked, turning to Keiichiro with his usual serious expression.

"Not at all," Keiichiro replied with a slight grin. "Not at all…"


	2. They didn't put this in the brochure

**Like Two Sides Of A Coin**

**Written by Asuka's Knight**

Your standard disclaimer: I don't own Tokyo Mew Mew, nor do I make any money from it. Blah-Blah, yada-yada, I really don't think I need to be wasting your time with stuff like this so let's get right to the reason you decided to come here, namely the fic. Let me know what you think, and if there are any improvements you believe I can make. Oh yeah, and thanks for taking the time out to read it.

Unfortunately, I've only had experience with the dub, but I've kind of seen that using anything from the dub is likely to get me the ass-chewing of a lifetime so I'll try my best to use the original names and attacks, but if you could keep this in mind when you review, I'd be very thankful.

However, I am going to use everyone's dub ages except Keiichiro. This is just a personal preference, but I apologise if it offends anyone.

All my information regarding the Japanese names, attacks, ages et al came from Mew Mew Power Uncensored so I'm giving the credit where credit is due.

* * *

Chapter One No Use In Crying Over Spilt Milkshake

"Pleeease, Ryou! Can't I go home? This place is dead." Ichigo asked, clinging onto Ryou's leg as he tried to shake her off.

"You've still got thirty minutes left," He said, sounding annoyed. "You offered to work Mint's shift today."

"That's only because I need the money, and she didn't tell me that no one came in at this time of the day. Why do you even keep the cafe open?"

"Because that's what the sign outside says, we're open until six. So, no, you can't go home."

Realising the situation called for desperate measures, Ichigo decided to unleash the most devastating weapon in her arsenal: The puppy-dog eyes. "Have a heart, Ryou," She pleaded, stretching her brown eyes as large as she could while putting on the most beseeching expression she could muster.

It worked. "Alright, if a customer doesn't walk through that door in the next minute, I'll let you go."

Confident that she would soon be taking off her waitress outfit and heading home, Ichigo watched the seconds tick by on Ryou's watch. With three seconds left, the bell above the door tinkled. Feeling as though her legs were about to collapse, she turned towards the entrance and saw an older boy sitting down at a table.

Ryou seemed to find her discontent funny. "Better go tend to your customer, Ichigo. Only twenty-five minutes left to go." He walked into the back, but glanced over his shoulder one last time. "And chin up, your ears are showing."

Sullenly, she put her hat back on to hide her ears and walked over to the table. If this guy wanted a glass of water, or didn't leave a decent tip, he was going to end up as kitty-chow. He glanced up from the book he was reading and Ichigo got a good look at him. He had dark brown hair that lay in a thick tangle on his head, covering his ears and the better half of his forehead. A pair of calm blue eyes was looking at her with some interest. He looked reasonably fit, and wore comfortable clothes; a red shirt, a pair of jeans and a pair of white sneakers. Nevertheless there was something about him that she couldn't place. He looked like he should have been smiling; he just had one of those faces. But there was only a ghost of a smile, like someone had done a very bad job of painting over his usual expression.

"Welcome to cafe Mew Mew. My name is Ichigo, what can I get you?" She asked, hoping the annoyance she felt for him wasn't showing through in her voice.

"I'll have a Double-thick chocolate shake, please." He said and handed her back the menu he hadn't even looked at. Sighing in her mind but giving him a smile she hoped would get her a bigger tip, she took the menu and went to go place the order at the kitchen. While she waited for it to be prepared, she b5egan collecting the plates and glasses from the other tables and stacked them all on the table next to the customer. Ryou was always complaining about how he had to go around gathering them himself, and she decided that even though he had enjoyed her discomfort maybe a little too much, she should try to look like an enthusiastic worker. She had just done the last table when Keiichiro called her to say the order was ready.

Ichigo took the glass and made her way to the table. Her only comfort was that the day was almost over, and that after this guy showing up, it couldn't get worse, could it?

Of course it could.

As she drew next to him, she tripped and for once her cat reflexes kicked in a little too late. She managed to prevent herself from taking a face-first dive onto the floor, but ended up dumping the entire glass of milk and ice-cream into her customer's lap.

"I'm sorry!" She said as he stood up, the milkshake dripping down the legs of his jeans. "Here I'll clean it up."

Ichigo hurriedly grabbed a napkin from the table next to him, unaware that it had been lying beneath a stack of plates. They both became very aware, however, as the whole heap crashed onto the floor.

The noise brought Ryou out of his study and Keiichiro from the kitchen. "What is going on he ?" Ryou began, but then he saw the shattered remains of about twenty plates on the floor, Ichigo standing right next to the devastation with a look that said she wished she was somewhere else and a young man, whose jeans were sporting a pattern he probably hadn't come in with, looking a little thunderstruck.

"Ichigo, what happened here?" Keiichiro asked, wondering how Ryou was going to react to this.

"It doesn't matter," Ryou said shortly and spoke to the customer. "I apologize for my waitresses' clumsiness. Unfortunately we're closing in a few minutes. When you decide to come here again, I'll make sure you get another drink free of charge." He turned to Ichigo. "Ichigo, these plates are coming out of your pocket. If you want to get them paid quickly, I'd suggest you stay after closing time and help Keiichiro clean up the kitchen. You can start tonight." When he had said his piece, he went back into the office

"I'll go get the broom." Keiichiro said quietly and back to the kitchen. This left Ichigo with the customer, who, not knowing what else to do, started picking up some of the broken pieces off of the floor.

"Would you please leave?" Ichigo asked him, trying to keep the anger in her voice down. This guy hadn't just ruined her day, but also the foreseeable future. She didn't even want to begin to think how long it was going to take to pay Ryou back for the dishes.

"I'm trying to help." It was a perfectly reasonable response, but unfortunately Ichigo didn't really feel very reasonable anymore.

"You've helped enough!" She yelled, taking a step towards him. "It's not enough that you messed up my chance to go home early, now I've got to take the little money I make here and pay back my boss for broken plates, plates that wouldn't have gotten broken in the first place if you had just picked another place to have your stupid milkshake! I don't want to take the chance that you're going to screw my day up any further, so just leave!"

At this point, Keiichiro came back and saved him from any more of the furious girl's wrath. "Ichigo, forget what Ryou said. You don't need to help me with anything in the kitchen tonight, just go and take off your uniform and go home. I'll have a talk with him about your paying for the dishes."

Wiping angry tears out of her eyes, Ichigo went into the locker room and began getting dressed in her normal clothes. A sleepy Masha emerged from her bag, but immediately came around when he saw his friend.

"Ichigo? What's wrong?"

"Nothing, Masha," She replied, trying to smile. "It's just been a really long, really bad day. But there's at least one thing I can look forward to: I'm pretty sure I've hit rock bottom so it can only get better from here on. Come on, we're going home."

When she left the locker room, the customer was gone. Only Keiichiro was still there, sweeping up the plates into a dustpan. He looked up as she came in and smiled.

"I've got some good news for you. You don't need to pay for the plates."

"Really?" She asked and hugged him. "Thanks for talking Ryou out of it. You do work fast."

"Actually," Keiichiro said and carried on with sweeping. "I didn't have anything to do with it. The customer who just left, he paid for them."

Ichigo's mouth dropped so low, any further and they would have had to wire it back. "What?"

"He asked me how much I thought they would cost to replace and when I gave him my estimate, he just handed me the money. I tried to give it back, but he wouldn't hear of it. He said that he didn't enjoy causing trouble for a pretty girl, and left."

"Oh " Now she was feeling kind of bad. "And after today, I don't think he'll be coming back. I wish I could just thank him for it."

"You still could," Keiichiro held out a book, which she recognized as the one the young man had been reading. "He left this here in his rush. I think he's one of those people who are pretty fond of their books it's got his address inside. It's on the way to your house, so you could go give it back to him as a peace offering."

Ichigo took the book and read the message inside. "If you happen to find this book, it means I've been an idiotic ass and left it somewhere. I'd appreciate it if you'd bring it back to me, and I'm willing to give you a reward for playing the Good Samaritan (Believe me, it's more than you'd get if you tried to sell it)."

"Okay, thanks." She was about to leave when he called her back. "What is it?"

"Ryou wanted you to leave Masha behind tonight, so he could just make sure he's still working alright."

"Oh," She opened her bag. "You heard him Masha, time for a tune-up." The pink robot floated out and down to the basement lab. "I've got to get going if I still want to stop by my rescuer's house and make it home before dark. Bye, Keiichiro, see you tomorrow."

In a considerably better mood, Ichigo left the cafee.

* * *

Ryou didn't look up from his computer as Keiichiro came into the basement. "Is Ichigo still here?"

"No, she's gone home. Ryou, were you really going to make her pay for the dishes?"

Ryou sighed. "I guess not. I just wanted to make sure she'd be more careful."

Chuckling, Keiichiro leaned against the wall next to Ryou's desk. "If the male customers keep giving her free passes, I don't think she ever will." When he saw Ryou looking at him with a quizzical expression, he explained what had happened.

"He didn't want to make trouble for a pretty girl " Ryou mused as he typed away. "That's so corny."

"Well, Ichigo didn't think so." Keiichiro saw what Ryou was working on and frowned. "You're researching another Red Data animal? Don't you think we should find the fifth girl first?"

"I just think it's good to be prepared. Kish has been pretty quiet for the past few weeks, and I don't like it."

"Interesting choice "

"What do you mean?"

"No, I just think that it's curious you've picked another feline as the Red Data animal whose DNA we're going to use."

"Are you implying something?" Ryou asked, turning to Keiichiro with his usual serious expression.

"Not at all," Keiichiro replied with a slight grin. "Not at all "


	3. Right Place, Definitely The Wrong Time

**Like Two Sides Of A Coin**

**Written by Asuka's Knight**

Your standard disclaimer: I don't own Tokyo Mew Mew, nor do I make any money from it. Blah-Blah, yada-yada, I really don't think I need to be wasting your time with stuff like this so let's get right to the reason you decided to come here, namely the fic. Let me know what you think, and if there are any improvements you believe I can make. Oh yeah, and thanks for taking the time out to read it.

Like I said before I only know the dub, Mew Mew Power, but I'll be doing my best to accurately use the Japanese names and attacks. I'd appreciate it if you kept this in mind when you review. Just to clarify things, this fic takes place before Zakuro joins the mews.

However, I am going to use everyone's dub ages except Keiichiro. This is just a personal preference, but I apologise if it offends anyone.

All my information regarding the Japanese names, attacks, ages _et al _came from Mew Mew Power Uncensored so I'm giving the credit where credit is due.

And again, thanks for everyone who's reviewed my fic so far.

-

Chapter Three – Right Place, Definitely The Wrong Time

_"Where the hell were you, you dumb son of a bitch? This is all your goddamned fault!"_

The words jolted Larry out of what had otherwise been a decent night's sleep. His eyes drifted over to the digital clock on his nightstand and he saw it was almost nine-thirty. Oh well, there was no chance of anymore sleep, so he might as well get the day started. Cleo heard her him get up and go into the bathroom, but did little more than sleepily raise her own head from her basket before falling right back asleep. When Larry stepped out the shower and saw her, he grinned.

_I have the world's fiercest guard dog,_ Larry thought amusedly to himself as he wiped the steam off the mirror. _Beware, intruders, if you don't want your skin licked off._

He lifted the fringe of hair that lay across his forehead and looked at the white scar that was two inches above his right eyebrow. The skin was still shiny and pulled taut across the cut that had taken a good few stitches to close up. It would probably never go away completely, so he'd have a good reminder of why he'd come here in the first place.

That his life could have become so screwed up in only a month was almost unbelievable. He had been out with his friend, Melanie. Since he was her closest guy-friend, she had taken him along to help pick out a present for Alan, her boyfriend.

"I need an insight into the male mind," She had told him as she dragged him from store to store. "And you're just the person to give it to me."

Turns out that she didn't really need his insight at all. Every single one of his ideas had been shot down and he suspected the real reason he had been brought along was to carry Mel's shopping after she had found Alan's gift. Laden with enough clothes to keep Milan in fashion for a couple of years, he had struggled out to his car while she had gone back inside to get her cellphone she had left in one of the changing rooms (While he liked to think there were still some decent people out there, Larry had lived in South Africa long enough to know there was a pretty good chance that it was already gone.

With the trunk loaded, he waited for fifteen minutes before deciding to go looking for her. Doubtless she had found another store that was having a clearance sale, and had decided to give her credit card one last good workout. He still hadn't found her when the two boys ran past.

"Yeah, there's blood EVERYWHERE!" One said with what would be considered pretty morbid enthusiasm.

"I didn't think anything like that could happen here," The other said. "People actually getting shot."

"I know. Cool, isn't it? The medics are carrying that girl out now."

Something about their words made Larry's stomach knot. It couldn't be…You read about stuff like this in the paper and you saw it on the news, but you always expected to be immune – that it happened to other people, not you or the ones you care for. Of course, that was a load of crap, and he was a big enough boy to understand that.

He found the place easily enough; he just had to look for the huge crowd. Forgetting any pretence of politeness, he shoved his way to the front, earning a few glares and one or two yelps from the stubborn ones who he quickly elbowed out of the way. When he got to the front and saw his fears realised, a hard lump came into his throat.

Even now, he didn't quite understand what prevented him from screaming, bursting into tears or something equally bad. I mean, when you see someone you've been friends with since kindergarten being lifted onto a stretcher with bullet hole you could fit your index finger into in their head, you're not exactly going to be the epitome of tranquillity.

Instead, he had gone to the third medic who wasn't helping with the stretcher and told him he was her friend, and that he'd like to go to the hospital with them. It didn't take a lot to convince the guy; he knew shock symptoms when he saw them – especially the dead, emotionless voice that Larry had thought was calmness.

On the way to the hospital, he had told Larry the story he had gotten from the security guards. It was one of those tragic coincidences that should only happen on a movie screen, not in real life. There had been a robbery at one of the shopping centre's jewellery stores, and the two thieves had decided the best way out was through one of the service hallways. Unfortunately they emerged in full view of three centre security guards, who quickly put the pieces together on seeing the bags and pistols. A full-out gunfight had erupted, leaving one of the guards wounded and the robbers resembling Swiss cheese.

Mel had simply been unlucky enough to be in one of the stores near the battle, and was also standing pretty close to the front of the store at the information booth, getting her phone returned. The ironic thing was, if the person who'd found her phone hadn't been nice enough to hand it in, she'd have been out of there a good thirty seconds before the shooting started.

"Is she going to make it?" Larry finally asked him after he'd finished the story. He looked down at his friend, who was still breathing, albeit extremely shallowly. When he saw the medic hesitate, he added: "I'd like to know the truth."

"We won't know until we get to the hospital," He said cautiously. "She's still breathing, so we can assume the bullet hasn't hit any vital parts of the brain. But whether we're going to be able to remove it without any complications is a different story."

An hour later, Larry was slipping into a doze on one of the chairs in the hospital's waiting area. He had been given a light tranquilizer by the medic and told to wait. Melanie had gone into surgery almost immediately after they had arrived here, and hadn't come out yet. His parents were at some function that his dad's company were hosting, but they had immediately left after he had called and told them what had happened. Now he was just waiting for them to show up.

"What happened?"

The deep voice broke through the thin layer of sleep and he looked up to see Melanie's parents standing in front of him. Her mother was still crying, but it was her father who was doing the talking. His eyes were red, but his face was set in a way that made Larry uneasy.

"Didn't the doctors tell you?" Larry asked. "She got caught in the crossfire between a bunch of robbers and the store security…"

"I don't care about that!" The only other person in the waiting room was the nurse at the front desk, and she looked up in surprise at the man's outburst. "I want to know why you weren't there!"

"Huh?" His slightly doped-up mind was struggling to respond to what was going on around him. "I was putting her shopping into the car…"

"And you let her go on her own?"

Finally what Grant Jackson was saying came through to him. "What, you're blaming ME for what happened to her?"

"You were nowhere to be found when the shooting started. You're her friend, but you did nothing!"

"It was a damned shopping mall, not a war zone! You think I'm psychic?" The tranquilizer had now worn off completely, and his anger was in full blaze. What did the old man expect him to do had he been there in any case, catch the bullets in his teeth? "Last time I checked, I wasn't running around with a big 'S' tattooed on my chest!"

"Don't you take that tone with me…!"

"Shut up!" Larry stood up, causing Melanie's dad to back away slightly. "How about you, Anne? Do you also think this whole thing is my fault?" He asked her mother. She didn't say anything, but the look on her face made it clear she agreed with her husband. "If you're blaming me, why don't you blame her for leaving her phone in the store, blame the security for not shooting those guys fast enough, blame the robbers for picking that day to rob the store, or the mall for being open? Hell, since we're dishing out blame to pretty much everybody, why not the two of you for having Melanie?"

It was in this confusion that his parents showed up. They quickly decided that the best thing to do was to get their son out of there before tempers flared any higher.

"They're just upset," His mom told him on the way back. "It'll all be fine in a few days."

-

She was wrong on that one. The doctors managed to remove the bullet without a whole lot of problems, but Melanie was still lying in a coma that the doctors gave her an evens chance of waking out of in full control of her limbs. And as a week went by, her parents weren't giving up on their assertion that it was his fault his had happened to their daughter. He could have (Just barely) lived with it, had it not been for what happened the day before he came to Tokyo.

School had just come out and he was standing around and chatting to his friends for a while before going home. They were listening to Michael telling them about his latest girlfriend problems (Larry wondered why they didn't just break-up, all they seemed to do was argue with each other) and none of them noticed the pretty big guy coming up behind Larry.

"Hello, Larry." He said softly.

"Oh, hey there, Alan." Larry turned as he recognised the voice. He also saw the fist approximately the size of his skull heading straight for his face. He tried to duck out of the way, not fast enough to avoid it completely but just enough so the blow that would have otherwise have broken his nose instead connected with his forehead just above his right eye and sent him sprawling to the ground. Stars exploded in front of his eyes, and he was knocked silly for a second.

His friends immediately got ready for a fight. When you reach the age of eighteen and begin going out to places where stupid people get a whole lot more drunk than they should and fights begin, you learn to stick together no matter how bad it got.

"Where the hell were you, you dumb son of a bitch?" Alan yelled at Larry, who raised his face to look at him. Blood was streaming down his face, some of it running into his eye. He wiped it away and stood up. "This is all your goddamned fault!"

Something inside Larry just snapped at those words. Great, someone else who was willing to lay the blame on the most convenient person available. He didn't care if it was a way of dealing with the grief people suffered; he was sick and tired of the accusations. First her parents, then today some of her friends were looking at him like he was the scum of the earth and now this muscle-headed jock decides to just punch him in the face.

Alan was six-foot-six and close to three hundred pounds, most of that weight coming from muscles that saw the inside of a gym at least twice a day. In contrast, Larry was six inches shorter and eighty-five pounds lighter, and while he was athletic there was no way he had as much strength as Alan.

So when Larry walked straight up to him and kneed him in the groin, no one was more surprised than Alan himself. Of course, he'd never seen Larry enter that freakish zone he went to when someone actually made him angry. As Alan doubled over, groaning, Larry grasped the front of his shirt and crashed his forehead into Alan's face. Five or six headbutts later when he finally let Alan collapse to the ground, it was no longer just his own blood covering his face.

"Now you've got something to actually blame me for…" Larry told him in a cold voice, before leaving his dumbfounded friends and getting in his car.

-

On the way back from the doctor's office, Larry suddenly came to the conclusion that he should leave until this storm had passed. There was no need to hang around here anymore, the four months of school he had left was only for acceptance exams for the kids who wanted to stay at his high school's university campus. He'd already been accepted into another university, so it didn't matter if he came to school or not.

He wasn't too sure where he was going to go, but when he looked at the black stitches sticking out from below his fringe, he knew it had to be somewhere. The wound had turned out to be a lot worse than he'd first imagined: Alan had split his eyebrow open to the bone and it had taken fourteen stitches to close up.

The answer came when he got home and saw a thick envelope lying on the table. He opened it and out fell his new passport, as well as several visas. He and Mel had been planning on taking a trip around the world when they finished high school, something they'd wanted to do since they were 8. Since then they had scraped and saved away every spare penny they could find, eventually having more than enough for two months abroad. But now...

It didn't take him long to decide on stopping in Japan first: He liked the country and his Japanese was pretty good since he had been taking it as a second language for the past five years.

Without a whole lot of planning about where he was going to stay when he got there, or anything else for that matter, Larry phoned the airport and booked himself on a six o'clock flight to Tokyo. He packed in what many would consider a haphazard way (As mentioned before, he showed up in Tokyo with only the shirt he was wearing at the time and the pair of sneakers he had on), before writing his parents a brief note saying where he was going and that they could pick up his car at the airport. After this, he grabbed his wallet, passport, visa and laptop before heading to the airport.

-

He had arrived in Tokyo suffering from jetlag and still with no clear idea of what he was going to do now that he was here. He went to one of the nearby hotels and checked in for the night, before going out to buy a paper and get some food. The food was to make up for a pretty bad airplane dinner; the paper was to find a more permanent living arrangement. Maybe there was a small apartment he could rent and pad it out with a mattress and some of those inflatable couches: Not something you were going to see in "House And Home", but it would be liveable.

Sitting next to a Ramen stand, he scanned through the personals until his eyes hit on a particular ad. Thinking it was too good to be true; he re-read it at least twice to make sure he wasn't mistaken. He circled it and headed back to the hotel. This was definitely worth checking out.

The next morning he found himself outside the house he had taken note of the evening before. He went up to the front door and rung the doorbell. An old woman, almost half his size opened it and gave him a mildly suspicious glance.

"Yes?"

"Hi. I'm here about the ad you placed in the paper."

"Really?" Her look didn't soften any. "Aren't you a little too young to be renting a house?"

"If you're worried about my being able to pay you…"

"No, it's not that," She interrupted him. "I just think it's odd that you're out here on your own," For a second, Larry thought she was going to leave him standing on the porch, but she stepped aside to let him in. "Well, come in and see if you like the look of the place."

Larry had been attracted to the house because the ad had said that the house was available to rent with its furniture and appliances included. He found out from the old woman that she was moving to a smaller place in the city, but didn't want to sell the house that her deceased husband had built, so she'd decided to rent it out to anyone interested.

"The price looks pretty good for a place this nice." Larry said as they were sitting around the kitchen table.

"I'm not interested in the money, I just want to make sure this place stays the way it is, at least until I'm underground and it won't bother me anymore," She looked at Larry and smiled. "Of course, we haven't talked about the deposit yet."

"Deposit? The ad didn't say anything about a deposit."

"Since you're going to be getting all of the furniture and appliances in here, I want to make sure you take care of them."

"How much?"

The figure she named made his eyebrows shoot up high enough to nearly leap off his head. "Wow…"

"It's fully refundable when you leave, of course," She smiled again. "Providing everything is as it should be. You don't need to worry that much, I'm taking all of the really valuable stuff with me. Just don't have any big parties or leave the stove on and you should be fine."

He finally decided to take her offer and the next day, he moved into the house. It was comfortable, and when he sent his parents the first e-mail to tell them how he was doing, it made them feel a lot better that he was staying in an actual house and not some second-rate hotel. They still weren't too happy with his decision to take off, but they could understand why he did it.

A few days went by and loneliness began creeping up on him. He didn't feel secure enough to go out and meet people, so he took the second-best choice: He went to the pet shop he had seen on one of his walks. He'd decided on something low-maintenance, like a bird or maybe a hamster.

But that choice went almost entirely out the window when the German Shepard puppy that had escaped its cage a second before he came in nearly bowled him over as he walked in. The owner apologised profusely and pulled it back into its cage. Larry had to smile at the disgusted look the dog shot the man as he locked the cage.

"How can I help you, sir?" The owner asked him. "And again, I apologise for the dog's behaviour."

"How much for the dog?" Larry asked.

"Excuse me?" The owner seemed surprised.

"I like her."

"Oh…"

That was how he and Cleo had gotten acquainted over two weeks ago. Now, he had met two girls (One who seemed to have a bit of a temper problem and another who had feline accessories) as well as a pointy-eared alien who wanted to take over the world. He had wisely decided to leave the "Almost getting eaten by a huge mole" out of his nightly correspondence to his parents. He didn't need them sending the men in the white coats after him just yet.

-

The entire flashback probably ran in his head for less than two seconds before he got dressed. Yet another day of figuring out what to do.

_You could head to that café again. They still owe you a drink…_

Was that really why he wanted to go there?

_Hey, you needed a reason, I supplied it. Besides, listen to that stomach growling. You could get some food as well._

That made sense. And if he ran into Ichigo again, well, it would just be even better.

-

At that time, the subject of his thoughts was manically running around Café Mew Mew, barely keeping up with the orders that were being shouted at her. For some reason, they were absolutely packed today, and there weren't any tables open. It didn't help that Lettuce was the only one actively helping her, since Mint was drinking her stupid tea and Pudding was too busy pulling out her repertoire of tricks to be of much help.

"Yes, I've got your coffee right here! No, your food isn't ready yet. Sure, I'll bring your bill in a second…Mint, could you please get up off of your behind and lend me a hand!?" Her frustration finally causing her to snap at the blue-haired girl around the stack of food she was carrying.

"I'll be there in a minute."

"That's what you said ten minutes ag…Ahhh!" She had to frantically jump out of the way as Pudding came rolling past on her ball. "I could have been off enjoying a nice romantic stroll with Masaya, and instead I've got to get all sweaty and worked up because SOME people don't pull their weight around here!"

When she'd finally gotten rid of everything she had been carrying, she leaned against the wall and hoped she'd have a minute or two to catch her breath. Unfortunately, no such luck was forthcoming.

"Ichigo?" Keiichiro stuck his head out the kitchen door. "Could you come in here for a second?"

"What is it?" She asked as she went inside. The normally spotless kitchen was now haphazardly strewn with cups and plates from food that the customers had already eaten, as well as dishes that still had to be taken out to them.

"Please go down into the lab and get Ryou out up here," Even Keiichiro was sounding slightly harassed today. "I can't keep up with this crowd on my own, and you guys are too busy out there to help me."

"Okay, sure."

She headed down into the basement and entered the lab where Ryou seemed to spend most of his time. The place was empty, which was a first. She was about to leave when she saw the photo on Ryou's desk next to his PC. It hadn't been there any of the times she'd been in here before. Taking a closer look, she saw a young boy with blonde hair whom she recognised as being Ryou. That meant the man and woman in the picture were…

"What are you doing in here?"

With a startled yell, Ichigo spun around and accidentally hit a whole bunch of keys on the keyboard as she put one of her hands on the desk. Ryou was standing in the doorway, his eyes quickly shifting from her to the picture.

"Uh, well I, you see…" Ichigo was too flustered to find the right words. Ryou walked past her and placed the picture into one of the drawers, before looking at her again.

"I'm waiting, Ichigo."

"Keiichiro asked me to come down here and get you," She said, finally recovering from her fright. "He wants you to come help him in the kitchen."

"Really?"

"If you don't want to believe me, go ask him yourself."

"Alright," He started moving to the door. "And Ichigo, it's not polite to go through other peoples' belongings. You don't see me digging in your locker, do you? Although, maybe you owe me now…" He chuckled as he left.

"Hey!" Ichigo shouted, leaving after him. "You leave your perverted hands out of my locker!"

Neither of them noticed the lines of text appearing on the PC screen:

**Target Check…**

**OK**

**Target Scan Being Carried Out…**

**RED DATA DNA MATCH CONFIRMED**

**Target Confirmed. Beginning Injection…**

-

Whistling, Larry stopped in the street in front of the café and looked at it. It was hard to believe the owners of this place were guys, I mean, a huge pink building doesn't exactly scream manliness, does it? Especially that weird winged cat at the top…

_What the…?_

He noticed that it had suddenly begun glowing. He had just enough time to raise an eyebrow before a beam of pink light struck him and he suddenly found himself in a very strange place indeed.

White and black bubbles were floating all around him, as far as he could see. Great, as if not enough weird things had already happened to him, now he was stuck in the twilight zone. Absently he glanced down and what he saw made him go red.

_Okay, make that stuck in the twilight zone with absolutely no clothes on…_

Heavy footfalls made him turn around and suddenly he wished he'd rather gone to France or England, because emerging from the bubbles was a huge white tiger. He considered bolting but knew it would be useless, there was no way he could outrun the tiger. It calmly walked over to him, gave him a curious sniff and looked up at the terrified human. For a second, Larry thought he might just get away unscathed. That was, until the tiger jumped up against him, using its weight to pin him to the ground.

He could smell the breath on him as it leaned in on his face. It opened its mouth and Larry waited for him face to get ripped off…But instead, the tiger licked him! Larry was surprised for a second, then laughed as he realised how ticklish it was. Like an overgrown puppy, it kept licking away at his face until Larry managed to push its head away.

"You're not so bad." Larry said and smiled. Considering all the other things that had happened to him, when the tiger smiled back at him he wasn't too surprised. Still smiling, the large cat lay on him and slowly began sinking into his body, like a person would sink into quicksand. When it was completely gone, Larry still lay there with a dreamy grin on his face.

_It feels nice…_


	4. First Signs

**Like Two Sides Of A Coin**

**Written by Asuka's Knight**

Your standard disclaimer: I don't own Tokyo Mew Mew, nor do I make any money from it. Blah-Blah, yada-yada, I really don't think I need to be wasting your time with stuff like this so let's get right to the reason you decided to come here, namely the fic. Let me know what you think, and if there are any improvements you believe I can make. Oh yeah, and thanks for taking the time out to read it.

Like I said before I only know the dub, Mew Mew Power, but I'll be doing my best to accurately use the Japanese names and attacks. I'd appreciate it if you kept this in mind when you review. Just to clarify things, this fic takes place before Zakuro joins the mews.

However, I am going to use everyone's dub ages except Keiichiro. This is just a personal preference, but I apologise if it offends anyone.

All my information regarding the Japanese names, attacks, ages _et al _came from Mew Mew Power Uncensored so I'm giving the credit where credit is due.

And again, thanks for everyone who's reviewed my fic so far – including the rather impatient one from Sam. Heh, here you go, man: Ask and ye shall receive.

Chapter Four – First Signs

_This is just payback for me looking at that picture of his…_ Ichigo thought hotly as she dragged the bag of trash outside. _Two big strong men and they pick the little girl to take out the trash. As if I didn't have enough to do already._

She threw the bag in the outside dustbin and wiped a hand across her forehead. Four more hours until she could go home. Funny, yesterday she was complaining that the place was too quiet and now she'd give anything for that boredom to come back. Oh well, she might as well enjoy the fresh air while it lasted and take the long way around back in.

She walked around and was about to head back in when she saw someone lying sprawled out on the pavement in front of the café. Her first thought was that someone had died from heatstroke or something, and that this definitely wasn't going to be too good for business. Then she saw that whoever it was, they were still breathing. Ichigo went over and saw that it was Larry, fast asleep on the pathway with the goofiest grin she'd ever seen in her life on his face.

"Hey, sleepy-head," She said and crouched next to him, shaking his shoulder slightly. "You'd better wake up or my boss is going to get ticketed for littering. Larry opened his one eye and for an instant, it was pitch black instead of its normal dark blue colour. "Whoa!" She yelled and overbalanced, falling halfway on top of him, her face a few inches from his.

_Well, this is definitely a nice surprise… _Larry thought as he saw Ichigo looking at him with a slightly surprised look on her face. Unfortunately, the few seconds of cheap sexual tension was broken when a group of giggling girls walked past pointing at them. Ichigo hurriedly got up, as did Larry.

"What happened to you?" Ichigo asked as she regained her composure.

"I have absolutely no idea," Larry replied, scratching his head. "One minute I was looking at the café and then…" He trailed off, realising that if he told Ichigo he'd been naked in a place with bubbles and a friendly tiger, she might start thinking it wasn't such a good idea to be near him in case insanity was contagious. "I haven't eaten yet, so maybe I collapsed from hunger."

"Well, I hope you're not planning on eating here," Ichigo said and nodded her head in the café's direction. "You won't get served until tomorrow morning, because that's when we might start slowing down. And, that's only if you somehow manage to find an open table."

"I can wait. Believe me, I don't have a whole lot planned for the day."

"Okay. If I see an open table, I'll make sure you're the first to know."

They walked into the café and Ichigo immediately had to go back to work, leaving Larry to hang around near the door and wait for a table to open up. He saw that today there were three other waitresses helping out. He chuckled to himself, wondering if the blonde owner made being cute a job requirement. Well, that would account for the fact that there were quite a few guys in this place that ordinarily they wouldn't be caught dead in. After about five minutes, a young couple left their table near the other end of the room at the same time that a girl came into the café and brushed past him. It was quite clear that she didn't care that he was here first, and made for the table. If she'd waited in line, Larry would have happily given it up for her, but now he decided that if she wanted to be rude then he'd just have to show her it didn't pay, but he'd have to run to run to get there before her.

Larry took off along the left side of the room, doing well for about a second. That was when the green-haired girl suddenly stepped out in front of him with a tray loaded with food. Her eyes grew with fright as he didn't show any sign of slowing down, but about a millisecond before he would have collided with her, he somehow front-flipped right over her without any problem and kept on running as he landed. He cut underneath one of the tables by using a nice baseball slide, surprising the occupants when he came out the other side and made a pretty impressive leap across the last seven feet between him and the table, landing squarely in the seat a full second before the girl got there.

"Next time, just ask." He said and gave her a slightly sarcastic smile, causing her to walk off in a huff. Now that he was seated, he suddenly realised that all of the stunts he'd just pulled off back there just weren't possible for him. Sure he was in pretty good shape, but he wasn't a small person and for him to front-flip over something even two bricks high was nigh-impossible, let alone a person who had to be at least five-seven, five-eight. And that final leap – there was a reason he'd never made the long-jump team in high school. His wool-gathering was interrupted by Ichigo stopping next to his table and placing a milkshake in front of him.

She gave him a small smile. "You work fast. I guess I still owe you this from yesterday."

"Thanks." He said and returned her smile. Suddenly, how he'd managed to do all those things didn't really matter that much any more.

-

_Whew, I can't believe today's actually over…_ Keiichiro thought as he helped the girls clean up the café after they'd closed for the day. Of course, Ryou wasn't anywhere to be found – he'd gone straight back into the basement the moment the "Closed" sign had been hung on the door.

"Why doesn't mister big-shot ever help us with the cleaning up?" Pudding asked indignantly as she mopped the floor.

"Because mister big-shot owns the place," Ryou said as he came up the stairs, hearing Pudding's comment. "Keiichiro, we have a problem."

Keiichiro suddenly looked worried. "What is it? Does it have to do with…?"

"Yeah," Ryou replied, looking straight at Ichigo as he spoke. "The new Red Data DNA. The dynamic leader here somehow managed to get it injected into somebody."

"Huh?" Ichigo nearly knocked over another stack of plates as she heard Ryou's accusation. "Oh no, Ryou Shirogane!" She said, walking up to him and poking him in the chest. "You're the smart scientist-type around here. I never go anywhere near your lab. Just because you go and mess up…!"

"Who was the one playing around near my computer this morning?" Ryou asked, his voice not changing its tone at all. "I distinctly remember you putting one of your hands on the keyboard."

Ichigo sweatdropped. "Uhh, well…"

"It doesn't matter," Ryou replied. "However it does give us a pretty big problem. Not only haven't we found the fifth Mew yet or know who she is, now we have some clueless person running around with Bengal Tiger DNA. We don't even have the advantage of the fifth Mew in that we know it's a girl we have to look for."

"But wouldn't they have an injection mark on their body as well?" Ichigo asked, thinking of the one on her leg.

"Are you going to go to everyone in Tokyo and ask them to strip down to their underwear so you can check if they have a mark or not?" Mint asked her.

"Look," Keiichiro interrupted before any arguing started. "I don't think it's that bad. Shouldn't the computer have recorded at least something about this person?"

"It got some genetic information, but not a lot," Ryou replied. "I guess it's a start. If we analyse it to death, it could tell us something. Alright, you four," He said, turning to the girls. "Judging by what we've learnt from you so far, whoever this person is, they're going to start noticing the effects pretty soon. I want you to head out and see if you can't spot someone running around with parts they shouldn't have. We need to find them before Kish, or this battle might be going the wrong way very quickly."

-

_Wow, that was a good snooze..._Larry thought to himself as he sat up. He'd gotten back from Café Mew Mew at around eleven and had felt tired for some reason, so he'd decided to take a nap. But it turns out his nap hadn't been as quick as he'd thought as he absently glanced at his clock, looked away, and then looked back so quickly there was an audible crack as his neck protested. It was past seven at night, no wonder he felt hungry.

He stretched out and walked into the kitchen, still rubbing his eyes and letting out a long yawn. Geez, that was just supposed to be a quick cat-nap as it were, but hey, there were worse things to do than sleep. He absently dug in the fridge and pulled out the milk carton – he hadn't drunk milk on its own in over five years, but for some reason he felt like it. As he drank, Cleo came trotting into the kitchen after hearing him wake up, but she paused in the doorway, looking about as confused as a dog could.

"Hey, Cleo. I still haven't fed, have I?"

His dog replied by going crazy, much like she had when Ichigo had turned up. She started barking at the top of her voice, jumping up against him and trying to snap at him. He finally managed to scoop her up, suffering a nip to one of his fingers.

"Hey, settle down, nya!" Larry said as he lifted her to be level with his face, not noticing the weird word he added at the end.

Cleo calmed down a little, sensing that this was still her master, despite...

Larry happened to catch a glance of himself in the mirror, and he came to within inches of dropping Cleo. His reflection was busy looking back at him, except he had two black and white ears sticking out the mass of tangled brown hair on his head. His canines (or should he call them "Felines" now) had lengthened slightly and when he looked down, he nearly fainted when he saw a black and white striped tail emerging from the back of his shorts.

"This can't be good, nya. And why do I keep saying 'nya', nya?"

His first thought was that this was a bad dream, but unfortunately that particular hope had already been shattered when Cleo had bit him on the finger, and the stinging was still there to remind him. He was desperately trying to figure out what to do when he recalled Mew Ichigo – Hey, if anyone could help him out of this mess, who better than another half-animal, half-human person?

_Yeah, travel agents never tell you about the cons of the places you're visiting. First I get yelled at by a waitress, then an alien harasses me before siccing his pet mole on me to turn me into dinner-chunks, then I end up in some weird place that looks like the set for a freaking bubble bath commercial which is home to a white tiger, and now I'm sprouting parts that look like they belong to aforementioned tiger. Great... _He thought sourly as he threw on a cap to hide his ears and a heavy raincoat to stop his tail from being seen, even though there was an evident bulge.

"I'll try to get back as soon as I can," Larry said to his somewhat distressed dog as he left. "Hopefully Mew Ichigo can find some way to turn me back…Nya."

He intended to head to Café Mew Mew first in the hope that Ichigo was still there – she might be the only one who could find the cat-girl quickly enough.

-

"Oh, I give up!" Mint angrily exclaimed to Lettuce who was helping her search. "Why should we care about this moron in any case?"

They'd split-up about an hour ago, but Ichigo, showing that she had some brains underneath her mildly ditzy personality had teamed Lettuce up with Mint before she had gone off, knowing that the spoilt girl might not give her all in the search. And she had been right on that one.

"You heard what Ryou said. If Kish finds this person, the earth could lose the only advantage it has, namely us."

"I still don't see why we're stuck..."

She was interrupted by Ichigo returning. "Have you two had any luck?"

"No," Lettuce replied, since Mint was looking a little too grumpy to talk right now. "We've been around this whole block and everyone looks pretty normal. Shouldn't we wait for Ryou and Keiichiro to find out something else about whoever we're looking for?"

Almost on cue, Pudding turned up with Masha following her. "Guys, Masha just came from the lab. He says Ryou analysed the DNA and stuff, and all he can tell us is we're looking for a guy."

"You mean the new Mew is a boy?" Ichigo asked, looking a little puzzled. "Now there's a surprise. I wonder if he'll turn into a girl when he transforms."

"Great, so we know it's a guy," Mint replied with fake enthusiasm. "That only narrows our search down to, what, a couple of hundred-thousand? A million?"

"It's better than what we had before, so stop complaining," Pudding shot back, and then noticed someone walking on the opposite side of the street. "Hey, Ichigo! Isn't that that guy from the cafe? You know, the one you told us about."

Ichigo first had to look past the cap, huge coat and the fact that he was walking with his face down, but she finally did recognise him. "Yeah, it is him. I wonder what he's doing."

"He really needs to update his wardrobe," Mint remarked. "Doesn't he know the big, bulky trenchcoat look went out about three decades ago? Hey, you! Tell me where you buy your clothes...So I can avoid it in the future!"

"Mint!" Ichigo scolded as Larry turned towards the yelling, for some reason looking quite relieved as he spotted them. He barely looked before crossing the street, nearly succeeding in getting run over by a car, before he reached the other side.

"Ichigo, I need your help, ny…" He said, biting something off at the end of his sentence. He nervously looked around at the other three waitresses he recognised from the café..

"With what?"

Larry glanced at the other three in a significant way, hoping to let Ichigo in on what he wanted without talking – that stupid "Nya" thing was cropping up whenever he spoke. Ichigo seemed to catch on to what he wanted, because she asked her friends to carry on with what they'd been doing. The green-haired one nodded and went off without another word, the younger blonde girl following immediately after, but the blue-haired one gave his coat a sarcastically appraising look before she left.

Ichigo gave Larry a questioning glance. He was looking pretty shook-up about something. "So, what's wrong?"

Shaking his head, Larry replied: "I need to find Mew Ichigo. Something's happening to me, and I don't know what it is, nya."

"What did you just say?" Ichigo asked, a little shocked as she recognised the word from her own time when she was undergoing her transformation.

"It's this dumb word that's been popping into my conversations, nya. It started happening right after I noticed these," He pulled off the cap and exposed the two white and black striped ears that were peeking out of his hair. Pointing at his back, he added: "I've got the matching tail, but I don't want to risk other people seeing it."

It was obvious – Larry was the new Mew. And to think he'd been sitting right under all their noses that very morning. But she had to make sure.

"Do you have any marks on your body, you know, that weren't there before?"

"What does it matter?" Larry asked, putting his hat back on. "Look, do you see now why I need to find Mew Ichigo?"

"Larry…" Ichigo started, but she was interrupted by laughing coming from above them. Three guesses as to who it was, and if you guessed everyone's favourite invading alien, congratulations. Kish was standing atop a nearby street sign, and he hopped off before approaching the two.

"You say he isn't your squeeze, and yet this is the second time I find you out with him in an abandoned part of town after dark. Are you trying to make me jealous?" He glanced over at Larry. "I don't know what she sees in you, since you aren't even smart enough to figure out that this one is the cat you're looking for."

"What are you talking about…Nya?" Larry asked.

"Oh, please. She's Ichigo, you're looking for Mew Ichigo; she's there a minute before you're about to get wiped out by my Chimera Animal, Mew Ichigo is there a minute after that. Are you getting the picture, or do I need to draw it for you?"

Ichigo stepped between the two of them. "Larry, I think you should leave. This might get ugly."

"Oh, you're protecting him? How sweet," Kish said mockingly. "Not that it matters, though. Larry, is it? You've got the supremely bad luck of ending up in the wrong place at the wrong time for the second time – you're about to get wiped out with the Mews."

From somewhere around them, a howl, followed by a savage snarl followed. Kish smiled.

"I hope you don't mind, my little doggie needed a bit of exercise, so I thought cat-chasing might do him some good. I hope you're ready to play, Ichigo."

Larry automatically backed up as a harsh shadow fell across them, his eyes automatically travelling up the creature that cast it. What's worse than a fifteen-foot mole? A twenty-foot cross between a werewolf and a coyote.

_I wonder if clicking my heels and saying "There's no place like home." three times will get me out of this mess… _He vaguely thought as he failed to notice a dull light starting to shine through the sleeve of his coat, a place where earlier today, though he hadn't noticed it, a mark had appeared on his upper arm – a mark shaped like a tiger's paw…


	5. Not That Simple

**Like Two Sides Of A Coin**

**Written by Asuka's Knight**

Your standard disclaimer: I don't own Tokyo Mew Mew, nor do I make any money from it. Blah-Blah, yada-yada, I really don't think I need to be wasting your time with stuff like this so let's get right to the reason you decided to come here, namely the fic. Let me know what you think, and if there are any improvements you believe I can make. Oh yeah, and thanks for taking the time out to read it.

Like I said before I only know the dub, Mew Mew Power, but I'll be doing my best to accurately use the Japanese names and attacks. I'd appreciate it if you kept this in mind when you review. Just to clarify things, this fic takes place before Zakuro joins the mews.

However, I am going to use everyone's dub ages except Keiichiro. This is just a personal preference, but I apologise if it offends anyone.

All my information regarding the Japanese names, attacks, ages _et al _came from Mew Mew Power Uncensored so I'm giving the credit where credit is due.

Just some info on the white tiger: Most of the websites I've visited state that white tigers are neither albinos, nor are they a different sub-species of tiger. They're simply born to Bengal tigers that carry the gene needed for the white colouring.

And yet again, big thanks for all the enthusiastic reviews for this fic especially from Yokie – I'm starting university in about two weeks, which is why there's been such a lack of updates, but as long as you people keep reviewing, I'll squeeze in some time to write.

Chapter Five – Not That Simple...

-

"Let's play fetch first," Kish said and pointed at Ichigo, before absently moving his finger to Larry. "I'll start with you. Get him!"

"Not good..." Larry rolled out of the way as the Chimera Animal pounced, only managing to pin his coat to the ground and ripping it off of him. The roll also cost him his hat, which meant that as he stood, his semi-transformed state was visible for all to see.

"What the?" Kish looked a little mystified at this new development, before he laughed. "I guess the Mews have to stick with the whole gender-equality thing as well. Too bad your debut battle is also going to be your last."

Larry couldn't figure out a witty reply while having to flip backwards to avoid getting snapped in half by the wolf's jaws. Right now, these new abilities of his were coming in really useful, maybe looking like a sideshow reject had its advantages. He was just beginning to feel that he had the hang of things and easily avoided another swipe from the Chimera Animal by jumping over its paw, but got caught by surprise as the beast used the momentum from its attack to swing a full 180 degrees and was struck by its tail, which unfortunately was nowhere near as soft as it looked. He was flung a couple of feet in the air before painfully crashing onto the road.

The creature seemed poised for the kill, but it was stopped mid-jump as a transformed Ichigo managed to connect with a hard kick to its muzzle that threw it out of the air and sent it slewing into the ground.

"Thanks a lot," Larry said as he got to his feet. "Did I mishear pointy-ears, or did he say there were more of you?"

Ichigo nodded. "Yes, and we're thinking the same thing: We might be needing a little help..." The two of them glanced at the wolf that got up and snarled, displaying about two-dozen sharp, pointy teeth. "Make that a lot of help."

Their conversation was cut short as they both had to duck out of the way to stop their heads being taken off. Larry glanced at the wolf as it skidded to a halt and wheeled around to come at them again, before saying something he hoped he'd live to regret later on.

"Go get your friends."

The look he got from Ichigo pretty much confirmed that she thought he was crazy as well. "You want to do what?"

"I'll keep Fido busy while you run off and get the reinforcements. Besides, I still owe you for saving my behind the other day," He saw her still looking ill at ease and made shooing motions with his hand. "The sooner you go, the less chance there is of you and your buddies coming back and finding this thing tucking into Filet a la Larry."

That finally persuaded her, and she gave him one more look that was seemed to wish him luck, before leaving. The wolf tried to head her off, but Larry distracted it by sliding underneath and grabbing two handfuls of the soft hair covering its belly and yanking hard. The Chimera Animal gave a shrill yelp and halted in its tracks. Any triumph he had been feeling quickly vanished as the beast dropped down on all fours, and he barely rolled out of the way before it crushed him.

"Bad move, newbie," Larry glanced up as Kish spoke. "You go and send the person who actually has experience in fighting my creatures off to get help? You're either really brave or just plain stupid, and since you're a human, I'm going with the latter."

"Hey, ET," Larry said, keeping one eye on the alien and the other on the Chimera Animal. "For someone who's supposed to be such a tough guy, you sure as hell don't fight a lot of your own battles."

Kish chuckled. "Why would I want to dirty my hands with the likes of you when I've got my Chimera Animals to do the work for me?"

"Uh-huh. You know, around here we call that being a chicken-sh..." His attempt at a comeback was spoilt by the Chimera Animal attacking again, and he quickly cut away to the side as it bit nothing but air. Larry jumped onto its head and stomped down with enough force to send its nose a few feet into the dirt. The wolf had barely extracted itself from the ground when Larry leapt off the end of its body and landed on its tail with both feet. The high-pitched howl that followed gave him a small measure of satisfaction.

"Seems your little puppy isn't as quick as you thought it was," Larry said as he leapt out of the way of another attack, again landing on the wolf's back and promptly started Moonwalking on top of it. "I mean, geez, a turtle strung out on smack moves faster than this." He added as he leapt off its back as the wolf tried to roll over in order to crush him.

"Oh, feeling a little more confident, are we?" Kish asked, smirking at this arrogant human. "Then I guess I can ask my Chimera Animal to stop playing around and actually fight normally."

"Fight...Normally?" Larry swallowed, suddenly wishing he'd listened to his mom when she told him to never brag.

"That's right – it's only been warming up," Kish snapped his fingers and the wolf rounded on Larry, eyes flashing red. "Take him!"

_This won't end well... _Larry thought, right before the wolf sprang forward a whole lot quicker than he'd been expecting and aimed a lightning-fast swipe at him. The blow knocked him off his feet and back-first into the trunk of a nearby tree, blasting every bit of air out of his lungs. He fell wheezing to the ground, trying to catch his breath, but Kish wasn't about to let him have a rest. The Chimera Animal lunged at him again, and he barely had enough breath to force himself to leap into the branches of the tree where he hoped to find some refuge.

Yeah, fat chance of that happening.

The wolf didn't so much shake him loose as smash the tree in half and cuff him in mid-air as he fell out. He crashed through the plate glass window of a clothing store and knocked over several display dummies before coming to a halt against the far wall.

"Is that all you've got?" Kish asked, feigning disappointment. He turned his head as Ichigo arrived with the other Mews. "Ahh, the cavalry's here," Kish chuckled. "I'm afraid you're just a little too late."

"Where is he?" Ichigo demanded, though the snapped tree and broken window gave her a pretty good idea, if not a happy one.

"I don't know," Kish idly replied as the wolf slowly stalked towards the girls. "But I'm pretty sure that you'll need a Ouija board to talk to him."

Ichigo wanted to jump forward but Mint held her back. "Forget him for a second! That -" She pointed at the Chimera Animal. "Is a bigger problem."

At that moment, their "bigger problem" decided to attack, scattering the girls and throwing any plans for a co-ordinated attack out the window. Lettuce was the first to recover, landing on her feet and pulling out her castanets. She focussed on the Chimera Animal as it was chasing Mint around and spun around before thrusting one of the castanets out.

"Ribbon Lettuce Rush!" Lettuce yelled, a powerful surge of water blasting straight towards the Chimera Animal. The wolf saw it coming and with almost impossible speed, it leapt out of the way a split-second before the attack hit. Instead of striking the Chimera Animal, Lettuce's attack blew a nearby parked car onto its side. Mint tried to attack as well, but the wolf evaded her Ribbon Mint Echo just as easily.

"It's too fast," Ichigo said as they regrouped, her attack having just missed as well. She ignored Kish's chuckling and instead whispered her plan to the others. "There's no way we can hit that thing if it keeps dashing around like this. Me, Mint and Lettuce will attack it from three sides, leaving it only one way to go. Pudding, that's when I want you to hit it with your attack – if we can get it frozen in place, we'll have a shot at defeating it. Everyone got it?"

"It's a good plan," Mint replied, smirking. "I'm surprised you're the one who came up with it."

"Why?" Ichigo asked. "I'm not just a pretty face, you know."

"Who said you were even that?"

Lettuce, mercifully the voice of reason, headed off this argument as it was most likely to get them killed. "I think the Chimera Animal is going to attack again. Let's finish this before anyone else gets hurt."

They broke apart just in time to avoid getting caught by the Chimera Animal, their numbers giving them a slight advantage by confusing it as to whom to go after. Ichigo, Mint and Lettuce positioned themselves in front, behind and to the side, drawing their weapons.

"Ribbon Strawberry Check!"

"Ribbon Mint Echo!"

"Ribbon Lettuce Rush!"

They fully expected the wolf to dodge to the side in Pudding's direction, where she would be able to trap it with her Ribbon Pudding Ring Inferno. The wolf was already twenty feet tall, so they aimed their attacks upwards – even if it jumped, they should have still hit it. Unfortunately, the wolf dodged their attacks by leaping even higher than they had expected, their attacks instead smashing into each other and exploding in a blinding flash of light. The situation had been further complicated by the fact that Pudding couldn't see the attacks had missed because of the light, and her attack wound up hitting Mint, trapping her instead of the wolf.

"Pudding!" An irate Mint yelled, pounding on the substance that had trapped her. However, the anger vanished quite quickly when the wolf landed again, snarling and batting both Ichigo and Lettuce away, before advancing on her. They'd pulled off miracle victories before, but she hoped if it was going to happen, it would happen quickly.

-

Kish watched the scene below with a satisfied smirk. "Seems my parasite has finally been perfected," He remarked to himself as he watched the battle below. "This planet is as good as mine." A scraping sound from behind him made him turn around, and what he saw suddenly made him lose some of his confidence.

"Surprise, jackass." Larry said as he dropped from the ruined window onto the sidewalk. There was a large gash along the side of his temple that was bleeding, and he absently spat some blood onto the sidewalk and wiped his mouth. "Oh, it's on now..."

"You should have stayed down," Kish said, quickly regaining his composure. "I would have forgotten about you. But, since you seem to be so stubborn," The Chimera Animal turned from the captive Mint to Larry. "I'll do you a favour and put you out of your misery for good."

Larry stepped towards the Chimera Animal, head bowed his tail flicking furiously. "Good luck doing it – I'm mad as hell right now, and unless you have another one of these, you're going to lose."

The wolf sped towards him, and was a split-second away from biting him in two when Larry suddenly lifted his head and grabbed the wolf's muzzle. He was forced back a foot or two, but impossibly seemed to have stopped the wolf's momentum dead. A dull white light came off of him and the mark on his arm glowed brightly as the wolf tried to pull away, but he managed to hold it in place.

Kish's jaw nearly dropped when he saw this, and his reaction was being shared by the Mews. Well, it seemed that the Red Data DNA might have some different reactions when used on a male, since neither of them had ever been able to stop a 20-foot Chimera Animal dead.

"That's amazing," Lettuce said, pulling Mint free from her confinement. "His abilities must be coming out..."

"About time." Mint replied sourly.

"We'll be invincible when he joins us!" An over-excited Pudding yelled. "We can call him Mew Muscle and he'll rip the Chimera Animals apart with his bare hands, and..."

"LADIES!" Larry yelled at them from his position, his voice sounding strained. "I'm sure that you're discussing something extremely interesting, but could you please do what you need to and get rid of this thing?"

Ichigo realised that he probably wouldn't be able to hold onto it forever, and immediately sprang into action. She gripped her Strawberry Bell and leapt forward, charging up her attack in mid-air just as Larry yanked the wolf forward and down, smashing it head-first into the pavement, before leaping out of the way. The wolf was still dazed as Ichigo lifted her weapon above her head.

"Ribbon Strawberry Check!"

The blast struck the Chimera Animal and for a second, it was framed in a brilliant burst of pink light, before it dissipated and what was left was a wolf cub and a parasite, which was quickly gobbled up by Masha.

Kish snorted in disgust and vanished, for once unable to come up with a sharp retort after a defeat. The white light that had surrounded Larry faded, and as it did, his ears and tail suddenly vanished as well. He looked a little surprised at this, though not unpleasantly so. He was still grinning a little when the Mews came up to him

Ichigo was smiling as she said: "I guess as the leader it's my duty to welcome you to the team. Congratulations on joining the Mews, Larry."

Larry's grin vanished as Masha spat out something that he caught – it turned out to be a pendant like the ones the girls were wearing around their necks. He looked at them for several long seconds, before shaking his head and saying what none of them were expecting.

"I can't take this," He abruptly dropped the pendant on the ground and started to walk off. He paused for a brief second and said without turning around: "I helped you tonight, but don't rely on me to do it again."

Without a further word, he left the dumbstruck girls standing where they were. For a second, none of them did anything, but then Ichigo bent down and retrieved the pendant, squeezing it tightly in her hand and looking at his retreating back.

"Now what?" She heard Lettuce ask.

"Catch him and lock him up in a cage until he gives up?" Pudding suggested.

"I say we leave him. When Kish goes after him when he's on his own, he'll come running soon enough." Mint said, her tone suggesting that Larry Linford was now a moot point.

"No, we can't," Ichigo finally said, standing up and looking at the pendant. "We have to make him understand that he needs to do this – that not only his, but everyone's future depends on it."

"How?" Lettuce asked, and there was silence for quite a while.

"I don't know," Ichigo finally said. "But we have to do it somehow..."

_What happened to you, Larry? _She thought to herself as he vanished around a corner. _Why won't you help?_


	6. Keep Your Enemies Close

**Like Two Sides Of A Coin**

**Written by Asuka's Knight**

Your standard disclaimer: I don't own Tokyo Mew Mew, nor do I make any money from it. Blah-Blah, yada-yada, I really don't think I need to be wasting your time with stuff like this so let's get right to the reason you decided to come here, namely the fic. Let me know what you think, and if there are any improvements you believe I can make. Oh yeah, and thanks for taking the time out to read it.

Like I said before I only know the dub, Mew Mew Power, but I'll be doing my best to accurately use the Japanese names and attacks. I'd appreciate it if you kept this in mind when you review. Just to clarify things, this fic takes place before Zakuro joins the mews.

However, I am going to use everyone's dub ages except Keiichiro. This is just a personal preference, but I apologise if it offends anyone. All my information regarding the Japanese names, attacks, age _et al _came from Mew Mew Power Uncensored so I'm giving the credit where credit is due.

"Holy reincarnation, Batman!"

Yeah, thanks for that…intro, Robin. Yes, believe it or now, I'm not dead yet, despite very good attempts from my lecturers. I finally managed to get this chapter written, so hopefully I haven't lost the people who were interested in the fic. Who knew becoming an accountant was this hard?

Even if you've reviewed this fic for every one of the previous chapters posted, I wouldn't mind another one for this chapter, even if it's just to say "Good job" or "You're still alive?"

Chapter Six – Keep Your Enemies Close...

-

None of them were too sure how Ryou was going to take the news that Larry had refused to be a part of the Mews. No-one had been especially enthusiastic about telling him, and after a long discussion (read: argument) Ichigo had once again gotten stuck with the assignment.

"You're the leader." Pudding had said as they voted in favour of her telling him.

"I'm only the leader when it's suitable for you guys," Ichigo had said sulkily as they entered the café, and found Ryou and Keiichiro still up and waiting for them. Keiichiro made them all coffee while she related the story of how they had found Larry running around half-transformed, Kish's attack, how they had defeated his Chimera Animal with Larry's help, and finally his blunt refusal to do anything further. Keiichiro looked disappointed, but Ryou didn't appear too upset.

When Ichigo had finished, he nodded and said simply: "Change his mind."

"Excuse me?"

Ryou glanced at Ichigo in a way that made it perfectly clear he wasn't kidding. "We need him. The four of you are going to do whatever it takes to make him see that."

"Uh, Ryou, this might just be me, but I got the distinct impression that he's not too concerned with the fact that the world is in peril."

Lettuce offered up her first contribution to the discussion. "I think Ryou might have a point there - he seems like a nice enough guy, I'm sure we can get through to him."

Mint still didn't seem too convinced about him being needed, and said as much. "Why do we need him? We've been doing fine enough until now, plus there's another one of us out there - one who was actually chosen and will definitely help out."

"Given how we've yet to find her after all this time," Ryou replied, not sounding too convinced with Mint's argument. "We can't count on that, and what we don't need right now are the aliens getting their hands on the one thing we have to fight them with." His tone indicated that there wasn't going to be any negotiation of this point, and he turned and disappeared upstairs. Keiichiro just grinned helplessly and told them to help themselves to anything else they wanted, he'd come lock up later, and then vanished off as well.

They stayed another five minutes in something resembling a morose silence, before Pudding finally banged her fist on the table.

"We can do it!"

Mint gave her a highly sarcastic glance, before asking. "Right. How, exactly?"

"I...!" Pudding's face fell a bit, before picking up. "I haven't thought about it that far yet, but we can. I mean, come on! We're four super-cute girls who save the world on a regular basis. Are you telling me we can't convince one lone guy to team up with us?"

They were silent again, and then Ichigo looked up from her clasped hands. "I agree with Pudding. It's like Lettuce said - the little I've seen of him makes me believe he wants to help, but...I think something's holding him back."

Lettuce nodded and Mint finally shook her head in a sort of exasperated agreement. "Okay. I guess I'd better tag along, since you're going to need my help in roping this guy in."

Ichigo chuckled. "Yes, Mint. After the comments and that look you gave him tonight, I'm sure he'll just be falling over himself to join after you talk to him."

"Ichigo," Mint said, with the tone of someone speaking to a small child. "Just because I have no urge to use it around you, doesn't mean I have no charm. Believe me - give me five seconds with him and he'll crumble like a fortune cookie. I'll prove it to you guys tomorrow."

The others just snickered quietly as they began planning what they were going to be doing tomorrow.

-

If Larry had known that four genetically-altered girls were busy scheming about him, his sleep may have been less than peaceful. However, between the stresses of finding himself partway transformed into a white tiger and fighting a giant dog, he pretty much slept solidly from the second his head hit the pillow after getting home to around ten that morning

He was woken by something wet pressing against his face and for a split-second, he flashed back to the tiger nuzzling him. Instead, when he lazily opened his eyes, he found Cleo nudging him with her nose and giving a short sharp bark as she jumped off the bed after seeing he was awake. Larry peered over the side of the bed to see her pushing her food bowl into the room before sitting down next to it and looking expectantly up at him.

Oh, right - in last night's confusion, he had never given Cleo any food. Chuckling a bit, he hopped out of bed and walked over to the cupboard where he kept the dog food, but when he pulled it open he discovered that there was none left.

"You'll have to wait a while longer," He told Cleo. "I'm just going to head down to the shop and grab you some food."

When he left the house some ten minutes later after a shower and getting dressed, he didn't notice a pair of brown eyes following him from a nearby tree.

"Alright, Masha," Ichigo told the small pink robot that was floating at ear-height. "Go tell the others where he's going."

"Roger. Commencing Operation Tiger Trap!"

"Operation Tiger Trap?" Ichigo asked, looking at Masha with faint amusement.

"Pudding said we have to refer to this as Operation Tiger Trap."

"Okay. Go tell them that the operation is a go."

Masha floated off and Ichigo watched him leave. Now she had to wait - if the other three couldn't convince Larry, she was the last resort. Ryou had suggested this (and with a very rare, if slightly mischievous grin) because: "If he's been softened up, you'll crack him no problem." When she had asked him why he thought this, he had merely shrugged and said "I've seen things."

-

He didn't know how many guys his age did their own grocery shopping, but Larry actually enjoyed it to a certain extent. Maybe because he decided what he ate and if he felt like having waffles for dinner and ice-cream sandwiches for breakfast he could. Maybe it was that absurd feeling of being all grown-up, like the first time he had been allowed to stay at home. Or maybe...

He watched a group of cute girls walk past and cracked a small smile.

_Or maybe I'm just weird like that. _Chuckling, he pulled down a tub of instant Ramen and nearly yelled out loud when a face popped up from behind it. It took a second for him to make sure his heart was still beating before he recognised the youngest waitress from the café - the blonde one who knew all the parlour tricks.

"You like Ramen?" She asked brightly, eyeing his shopping cart.

"I do," He replied cautiously, eyeing her. "What exactly are you do...?"

"If Kish manages to take over the world, there won't be any more Ramen, you know that?"

Larry arched a brow. "Oh, really?"

"Uh-huh," She said, nodding enthusiastically. "So if we four little girls get beaten, no more noodles for you. In fact, I don't think you'll even be _around _to be sad about not having any more…Hey! What are you doing?"

Larry calmly placed the tub of Ramen back into place, obscuring Pudding's face. "Well, if that's true," He said, smiling as he walked off. "I'd better lay off it then."

_Nice try, little lady, but no sale._

His smile vanished about three minutes later when, shopping in hand, a voice spoke up behind him.

"Well, hello there, Larry."

_Oh, you have _got _to be kidding me…_

Turning, he saw another one of the waitresses, this time the snarky blue-haired one who had made the comment about his coat, sitting at a table of the coffee shop he had just walked past. She was smiling alluringly at him, and was made-up a little. Larry had to give her credit – the girl knew what she was doing.

"Hey. How's it going?"

"Oh, I'm alright, I suppose," She said with a small sigh. "It'd be better if I had some company though."

He grinned inwardly. Sorry, Mint – those ten points for subtlety just went down the drain. Deciding to play along, he chewed the inside of his mouth thoughtfully.

"Well, I'm in no rush…"

The satisfied look on her face was only there for a second, but he caught it. "I'm sure a nice guy like you has a girl waiting for him at home. I shouldn't keep you."

Okay, plus ten for the ego-stroking, but minus five for thinking it'd immediately win anyone over with an IQ bigger than their belt sizes.

"Heh, the girl waiting for me at home has four legs, is furry and yaps a lot. I've got the time, don't worry."

Mint chuckled under her breath as Larry came up to the table and put the shopping down next to his feet before sitting down. She'd told the others to leave it up to her, and look now – she had him on a line and was only a few seconds away from closing the deal. Looking up, she decided to turn her charm up another few dials.

"How is it that you don't have a girlfriend? I mean, you're cute, smart, funny and the way you handled that Chimera Animal last night," She made sure to put emphasis on the last part. "They should be lining up to get to you."

Larry pretended to look a little pained, and then he spoke. "Maybe because I'm not good with girls – there's something about me I've never been able to tell anyone else. But you…" He looked at her and smiled. "You're different."

Paydirt! She must have worked her magic well, since he seemed to trust her enough to tell her. _Okay, let him spill the beans, act sympathetic, and then you can just kind of nudge him into joining._ _He'll go along with it, since you seem to be his saviour amongst women._

"I'll listen, if you want me to." She said, leaning forward.

Larry leaned forward too. "Well…Up and until six months ago…" His voice became softer. "I was actually known as Laura." To see her face go from well-put-on, if fake concern, to abject horror was amusing in a very twisted way. Larry smiled. "Thanks, Mint. It felt good to get that off my chest. Have a nice day, girlfriend."

_Strike two, girls._

Leaving her with her expression still frozen in that scandalized way, he grabbed his shopping and walked off, chuckling in a thoroughly evil manner. He was still looking fairly amused when he walked through the park where he and Ichigo had first been attacked by Kish and his Chimera Animal. Yeah, that had definitely not been what he had expected from Japan. He was wondering if maybe it wasn't less stressful back home, despite everything, when someone collided full speed with him, knocking him flat onto his behind, which was just some testament as to how fast the other person had been running. Looking up, he rolled his eyes slightly. Why was he even surprised?

Lettuce shook her head, trying to get rid of the cobwebs that the impromptu tumble had given her. "I'm sorry, I'm very sorry – I was in a rush, and…" She looked at who she had run into and blushed deeply. "Oh, no."

Larry got up and held out his hand to her. "Let me guess: You were supposed to intercept me somewhere just after Mint, in case she didn't persuade me to join?" She didn't say anything as he helped her up, but the darkening of her cheeks made it obvious. "So...Pudding tried persuading me that if Kish takes over the world, I won't have any Ramen to enjoy. Mint tried the old seduction technique, and I think she might regain her ability to speak by next week. What was your trick going to be?"

"I…" She looked down at the floor. "I was just going to talk to you and try to change your mind, that's all. Larry, please…We need your help. So far we've managed to beat everything he's thrown at us, but it gets harder every time. If you weren't there last night, we might not have walked out alive. We don't do this because we want to, but because we have to. If we don't, then…" Finally, Lettuce looked up. "Well, then mankind doesn't have a future."

Larry looked at her, his expression unreadable, and then he smiled. "You know, out of all the tactics today, yours came the closest to winning me over. Look, Lettuce, I'm really sorry to have to disappoint you, but at this stage, I really can't do this. It's just that…" He looked away, his smile vanishing. "Sometimes I wonder whether mankind is even worth saving."

"That's harsh." She said, almost scolding him.

"Maybe, but it's true," He picked up his bag again and as he passed her, shook his head. "I'm sorry."

"Me too."

The rest of Larry's trip home was in silence, though as walked up the path to the front door, his eyes shot to one of the trees in the yard, sensing something familiar in the foliage. Meanwhile, in said tree, Ichigo nearly fell out as his eyes seemed to lock right onto her. As she regained her footing, Masha floated down to her.

"The others couldn't do it," The robot told her as they watched Larry go into the house. "Pudding says the success of Operation Tiger Trap is up to you now."

Despite the ridiculous name, Ichigo nodded determinedly. "Right. Off I go then."

-

Stretching as he put the bag down, Larry looked around for Cleo. Usually she scampered in to greet him when he so much as got near the front door, but now she was nowhere to be seen.

"Cleo! Hey, I've got your food! Cleo?"

Confused, he went out into the backyard, where what he saw stopped him dead. Cleo was floating in a transparent bubble above the ground, her barking all but muted by it. He didn't even have to guess to know who had done this.

"Alright, you mister Spock-wannabe," He said, looking around. "You'd better let my dog go this instant, or I'm going to hurt you."

"No need for violence, my primitive friend," Kish said silkily as he appeared next to the bubble. "I'm merely here to try and…conclude a gentlemen's agreement with you."

"Uh-huh. That being?"

Kish held his arms open, palms-up, as a type of shrug. "I get the general impression that you didn't hook up with the Mews, since you're not at the café in a little apron and hat."

"Very intuitive," Larry replied, sounding bored despite the situation. "Now, are you going to guess my weight, or actually get to the point?"

"Simply this – you leave me alone, and I'll leave you alone. We basically keep the status quo: things stay as they were before you turned up and started developing a case of double identity. I battle the Mews, they battle me, and you stay at home and play with Poochy here," He released the bubble and Cleo dropped ungainly to the floor before bolting over to her owner. "Do we have a deal?"

"Fine," Larry said off-handedly. "But if you ever go after people I care about, I'll come down on you like a ton of bricks. Are we clear?"

Kish smirked. "Crystal. See you around."

Larry didn't watch him leave as he went back inside to finally feed Cleo. Of course, just because life hated him, he again wasn't alone when he got inside.

Ichigo was standing in the kitchen, and to say she looked furious would be an understatement. "How could you?"

"Afternoon to you too," Larry said as he pushed Cleo back out into the yard, since she had started going crazy again on seeing Ichigo. "Come on in."

"You're going to just stand around and maybe let the earth get taken over by some alien? What is wrong with you?"

"Who said there has to be anything wrong with me?" Larry asked as he started packing stuff into cupboards, trying to ignore his own simmering temper. "I'm the one who's just trying to carry on living a normal life that does _not_ involve turning into an animal and running off saving the world."

Seething, Ichigo grabbed his shoulder from behind and forcefully turned him around. "In case you haven't noticed yet, you _live _in this world. If it goes, so do you. If nothing, at least that should matter to your petty, selfish ego!"

"My ego has jack-shit to do with this!" Larry shot back, slamming the cupboard shut violently. "Give me one reason – just one good reason, why I should bother saving a world that has done nothing but bite me in the ass for the past month. Tell me why I should bother saving a species that forced me to leave my country."

Ichigo didn't even bother figuring out what he had just meant. Instead, her eyes just narrowed with something resembling disgust. "I was wrong about you. You're nothing but a self-centred coward! Fine, stay here and make your agreements with someone who wouldn't hesitate to double-cross and kill you. But don't ever bother coming to me or anyone else for anything."

"Beautiful speech," Larry said, his voice heavy with sarcasm. "Now get the hell out of my house, and I hope the door smacks you in the face on your way out."

He was breathing heavily as he leaned against the counter, squeezing the bridge of his nose to ward off a headache. Why couldn't these people understand? When things are going great, everyone's happy and they couldn't give a second thought about who it is making them great. But as soon as it all goes pear-shaped, they start looking for someone to blame for it. He'd had enough of that back home – he didn't need the other six billion people of the world ganging up on him. Yeah, maybe it was a bit selfish, but no-one else was looking out for him.

Of course, about ten minutes later, his conscience quietly started bothering him. Yeah, fine, Ichigo had pushed him, but did he really have to go off on her? She didn't know anything about what had happened back home with him and the whole situation with Melanie. She didn't know why the rest of humanity was currently very low on his list of priorities. In fact, now that he was looking at it a little less angry and upset, he could see how he might have come off as a self-serving douchebag.

Sighing, he stood up, but not before letting Cleo back in and finally feeding his starving dog. Ichigo was probably back at the café, reminiscing with her friends about what a bastard he was. He still wasn't going to join, but…Maybe if he told her why he felt like this, she'd understand. That and he just wanted to say sorry to her.

_Uh-huh, I'm _sure _that's the only reason you want to make up with her._

He silenced that annoying voice in his head and grabbed a jacket, before heading out again.

-

Almost home, Ichigo didn't quite know whether she was furious with Larry for choosing not to join over what she thought was an extremely moronic reason, or upset over the way he had spoken to her. And really, it was the second one that confused her. Sure, she considered him maybe a fringe friend, so that might be why she felt so miserable about him telling her to get out and hoping the door hit her, but then again…

Maybe luckily for her, any other thoughts along those lines were immediately cut off as Kish made one of his unwelcome appearances by landing on top of a nearby bus stop.

"Aw, is little Ichigo upset?"

"About what?" She snarled, spinning to face him. "That someone I thought was a friend turned out to be as big a slimeball as you?"

"Testy, aren't we?" He said, his tone teasing. "Your prince turned out to be a nothing but a regular frog, huh?"

This really wasn't doing a whole lot for Ichigo's mood, which was already highly combustible. "First-off, he was never anything of mine. And secondly, I'm going to rip your mouth off for everything you've said, and for kissing me!"

Deciding that he had played enough games, Kish snapped his fingers and another Chimera Animal materialised seemingly out of nowhere in front of a bunch of trees. Ichigo watched it lazily roll its eyes and turned to Kish.

"A chameleon? You've really run out of ideas, haven't you?"

"Oh, I think you'll disagree once you see my Repli-chameleon in action," Kish said as he watched Ichigo transform into Mew Ichigo.

"You seem to say that a lot, and yet we always manage to beat you," The now-transformed Ichigo replied as she sized up the chameleon. "What makes you think this time will be any different?"

The chameleon, despite its seeming lethargy, jumped up from its sleeping position in an attempt to attack Ichigo. She was still much quicker than it, though, and avoided it easily. But as she turned around, she was suddenly confronted with Mint standing in front of her.

"Mint, what are you…" Her words were cut off as Mint lashed out and kicked her full in the stomach, knocking her to the ground.

"Surprised?" Kish asked, smirking at her astonishment. Mint flashed red, and it turned back into Kish's Repli-chameleon. "I wondered what would be the best weapon to defeat the Mews with, and then I recalled you Earthlings have a saying: 'Fight fire with fire.' So my Chimera Animal can turn into any of you, down to the last hair. And they're just as fast and strong as you are, just less annoying."

Ichigo barely had time to scramble to her feet as the Chimera Animal morphed into Lettuce and attacked using its version of the Ribbon Lettuce Rush. She managed to avoid the first burst of water, but the second hit her and sent her tumbling over a nearby car. She lifted her head above the bonnet, but then quickly had to duck as an arrow came flying overhead. This was bad - even though this was a one-on-one fight, she was technically outnumbered. She needed the others, but had no way of contacting them - Masha had gone off to tell them that Larry had made an agreement with Kish...

Any idea of taking cover any longer was thrown out the window when the car was suddenly blasted over her head and sent crashing into the wall of an apartment building. Looking up, she discovered the Chimera Animal had turned into herself and was putting away its Strawberry Bell.

This day was just getting better and better.

-

Ryou was downstairs in the laboratory when he heard someone banging on the door. At first he ignored it, thinking whoever it was would see the "closed" sign on the door - since the girls were out trying to persuade the accidental Mew to join them, there hadn't been a point to opening the café today. But when it carried, on he shook his head and got up from his computer, cursing people who couldn't read.

"We're closed..." He started, and then saw Larry standing on the doorstep. By the look on his face, Ryou could tell that whatever it was he had come to do here, announcing his allegiance wasn't one of them.

"Is Ichigo here?" Larry asked, not waiting for an answer as he stepped inside and looked around.

"No, she's not. I take it they couldn't persuade you."

Larry shook his head. "No. Look, if she's not here, where is she?"

Ryou shrugged, his eyes not leaving Larry. "I don't know. Then again, I've got to wonder why you would want to see her."

"I need to talk to her, that's all. I just have to explain something to her."

"Right," Ryou said in a tone of voice that made it clear he knew Larry had some ulterior motives, even if Larry didn't know himself yet.

They couldn't talk any further, because at that moment, Keiichiro burst into the café, panting heavily. "Ryou, where are the other girls?"

"They're probably at home. Why?"

Though it was clear he was running on something other than oxygen at the moment, he still managed to answer. "I...I was coming back from the store when I heard a commotion. It's Ichigo - she's fighting some new kind of Chimera Animal, but it's not going well. If the others don't get there soon..."

Ryou made the mental calculation. If it was as bad as Keiichiro was making it out to be, the other girls wouldn't get there quickly enough. She wasn't going to make it, unless...He looked at Larry, who immediately read what he was thinking and shook his head.

"No. I told you, I'm not doing this saving the world junk."

"You wanted to know where she was - she's about to get killed by a Chimera Animal," Ryou replied, his voice not raising any more than it was already. "So, go save her, and then you can do your explaining."

"I'm not getting drawn in! God, why can't you people understand that?"

It was then that the normally-calm Keiichiro lost his temper and he physically grabbed Larry, lifting the younger man a few inches off the ground.

"Ichigo thought of you as a friend. She saved your life without even knowing who you were, and this is how you're planning to repay her?" He shook Larry. "Is it? You're nothing but a selfish coward!"

Larry's face set, and he shoved Keiichiro back, dropping to the floor. "That's just what Ichigo said..." He quietly said, almost to himself as he went to the door, turning his back on Ryou and Keiichiro. "And yeah, I probably am."

-

Things really were looking bad for Ichigo. Whilst the Chimera Animal itself was fairly slow, when it was transformed into a Mew, it was almost impossible to hit it with any of her attacks. The Repli-chameleon (in the form of Pudding) had just dodged a Ribbon Strawberry Check. Before she could react, it morphed into Lettuce and blasted her with a Ribbon Lettuce Rush. She smashed into a lamppost, the impact knocking her for a loop and she turned back to her normal self.

Kish smirked in a satisfied way. He wasn't going to kill Ichigo, but maybe she had had enough to be persuaded to come with him. He didn't want to have to destroy her along with the rest of her pathetic race.

"How about you make a deal with me, same as you pal Larry did," Kish said as the Repli-chameleon stalked the fallen Ichigo and grabbed her by the throat, pinning her to the post. "Come with me, and my Chimera Animal won't squeeze that pretty little head from your shoulders."

Ichigo laughed darkly, tasting blood in her mouth. She had taken quite a beating. "I'd rather you kill me, Kish. But if you think you're going to win, you're wrong."

"Oh, really?" He asked, trying to stay nonchalant. "You'd die before joining me? How noble...And horribly clichéd."

"What can I say? Life imitates art."

"Ichigo, you don't really want to die, do you?"

"No, but I'd rather die than live as your pet..." She hissed, struggling to stay conscious as the Chimera Animal cut off her oxygen. "So, just do it alrea..." Ichigo's words faded as she was dumped into unconsciousness.

If she was going to push him, he wouldn't have a choice: Deep Blue wouldn't accept anything as an excuse if he didn't get rid of one of the Mews when he had a chance. Kish was still struggling with his feelings when his Chimera Animal was blasted back, landing in an ungainly heap. Astonished, his eyes suddenly found what had done it.

"You!"

"Yeah..." Larry replied, looking at Kish with the limp Ichigo in his arms, his face stony. "Me."


	7. And Your Friends Closer

**Like Two Sides Of A Coin**

**Written by Asuka's Knight**

Your standard disclaimer: I don't own Tokyo Mew Mew, nor do I make any money from it. Blah-Blah, yada-yada, I really don't think I need to be wasting your time with stuff like this so let's get right to the reason you decided to come here, namely the fic. Let me know what you think, and if there are any improvements you believe I can make. Oh yeah, and thanks for taking the time out to read it.

Like I said before I only know the dub, Mew Mew Power, but I'll be doing my best to accurately use the Japanese names and attacks. I'd appreciate it if you kept this in mind when you review. Just to clarify things, this fic takes place before Zakuro joins the mews.

However, I am going to use everyone's dub ages except Keiichiro. This is just a personal preference, but I apologise if it offends anyone. All my information regarding the Japanese names, attacks, age _et al _came from Mew Mew Power Uncensored so I'm giving the credit where credit is due.

My usual thanks to everyone who reviewed the last chapter, especially Mew Sahara who gave me a review for it and all the ones preceding it. Thanks, guys - it's stuff like that that keeps me writing.

Chapter Seven – ...And Your Friends Closer

-

_"That's just what Ichigo said..." Ryou watched as Larry shook his head and turned away from them, heading towards the door and probably as far away from this situation as he could. "And yeah, I probably am."_

_Keiichiro looked helplessly after him and then at Ryou. He didn't need to say anything - if Larry walked away from this now..._

_"And..." They looked up as Larry paused, his hand on the door, but not pushing it open. "Maybe it's time to change that. You said she was near here, right? Then I should be able to find her."_

_"Hey!" Larry turned and saw Ryou take something off the table, before tossing it at him. He caught it and recognised the pendant he had dropped the previous night. "You might need that."_

_His fist closed around the pendant and nodded. "Thanks. Listen, I don't know if I'm going to be able to beat that thing myself..."_

_Ryou nodded. "We'll take care of it."_

_"Then I'll go take care of what I have to."_

-

Kish stared at Larry as his Chimera Animal rose. "I thought we had an agreement."

"We did," Larry replied, his gaze shifting from Kish to Ichigo. "You broke it."

"I did no such thing!"

"I warned you that if you went after people I cared about, it was done," He said as he carried Ichigo to the doorway of a nearby store - it wasn't much, but she would be fairly safe there. He gently put her down and looked at her. "...Sorry I was late."

Kish snorted. "You never said you cared about the Mews."

Larry stood up and walked towards the Repli-chameleon, his hand absently straying to the pendant in his back pocket. "Funny, I didn't see a Mew," Larry replied. "All I saw was Ichigo, and I don't recall giving you the okay to go after her."

Sneering, Kish shook his head almost pityingly at Larry. "You humans...You can never do anything right, even if it's for your own good. Alright, if you don't want to stick to our deal, then you can die."

Larry's face set as the Chimera Animal turned its gaze on him and he pulled the pendant out of his jeans. Guess it was time to see what he could really do. He just hoped he wouldn't turn into a girl when he used this thing.

"Mew Mew Eclipse Metamorphosis!"

The Repli-chameleon and Kish flinched back slightly as light suddenly erupted from Larry, casting an eerie glow over his features and making them almost impossible to make out. Shards of black and white energy swirled around him from head to toe, and when it cleared, his hair had gone from its normal dark brown colour to powder white. His eyes were now pitch-black instead of dark blue and his clothes had morphed into a pair of black jeans and white vest. As he clenched his fists, a pair of snug black leather gloves covered them while each of his upper arms now sported a white band around them. A white and black-striped tail popped out the back of his new jeans and flicked once or twice, a pair of similarly-striped ears emerging from the bed of white hair at the same time. As a final touch, his pendant appeared around his neck, hanging on a white-trimmed black collar.

Larry looked up. "For the future of the Earth, I'm going to kick your face in, nya!"

The Chimera Animal transformed into Mint again, and pulled out her bow. Nearly a split-second too late, Larry realised what was coming his way and he narrowly ducked out of the way the copy's Ribbon Mint Echo. The arrow still nicked his cheek, drawing a thin line of blood. He would have to get in close - all the girls had long range weapons, which he had no way to counter. And even if they were stronger than the average girl, he'd probably still have the advantage.

_Never thought I'd have to hit a girl...Or, an alien monster that looked like a girl, anyway._

He closed the distance between himself and the Repli-Chameleon, who immediately lashed out with a sharp right hook. Larry blocked it and when it went for a follow-up kick, he managed to grab its leg before throwing it up into the air. It barely had time to start falling when Larry jumped up and in mid-air snagged its arm, following it up by executing an over-the-shoulder throw that sent it smashing back into the ground.

The Chimera Animal shook its head as it got up, and morphed into Pudding as Larry landed. The male Mew again tried to use his strength advantage, but in this form, the Chimera Animal found it easy to duck and weave away from his attacks. Finally, it bounded right over Larry's head, kicking of the back of his neck with sufficient force to knock him down.

"Finish him!" Kish ordered the Chimera Animal, who obeyed by hitting Larry with its Ribbon Pudding Ring Inferno. Larry had only gotten to his knees when the attack struck him, trapping him inside a pudding-like blob. Satisfied, Kish floated down to Larry's level as he glanced at the prison he's trapped in.

"Like a rat in a cage."

"Actually," Larry replied, not sounding too worried by his situation. "I'm a cat, if you want to get technical."

Kish gave him a sarcastic slow clap. "Very good - keeping your sense of humour, I like that. You should have kept to our deal, human. I'm still going to accomplish what I wanted to, the only difference is that you're going to go the same way as the rest of the Mews."

Larry shook his head and made a great show of yawning. "Are you done yet? Because if you don't mind, I'm going to get out of this goop."

Kish looked sceptical until he saw what had appeared in Larry's hands. Two katanas glinted in the sunlight, one black and one white. Larry hacked himself out of the prison, his tail twitching irritably to shake off some of the matter he'd been trapped in. He turned to the Chimera Animal and launched himself weapons-first at it. Kish suddenly motioned to it and it morphed into Ichigo. Larry's eyes widened and he jammed one of his katanas into the earth, halting his attack a few feet before the fake Ichigo.

"So you care about her, do you, Larry?" Kish mused, watching Larry's indecision with a measure of satisfaction. "Come on, finish this fight. You have the upper hand - you're stronger than any of the Mews my Chimera Animal can turn into, and it can't turn into you."

It was just a stupid copy - he didn't have any trouble with going after it when it had been one of the other girls, so why now? A light moan made him look back and he saw the real Ichigo stirring. When his eyes turned back to the Chimera Animal, they were glinting with determination. There was no use in holding back and losing something real because of something false.

"Since you asked so nicely," Larry said, taking a step back and crossing his swords in front of him. "It'd be rude not to."

"What...?"

"Ribbon Eclipse Driver!" Larry suddenly blurred into a streak of white and black as he shot towards the Chimera Animal. He was right on top of it when he slashed with his crossed blades, a cloud of dust kicking up from the speed he was travelling at. When it cleared, Larry was crouched behind the Chimera Animal, his eyes closed. Abruptly, a flash of bright light erupted from it, and it revealed one of Kish's parasites and a chameleon, which quickly changed to the shade of the pavement.

Larry stood and looked at Kish. "Was that good enough for you?"

Kish's voice was quiet, but Larry had no trouble hearing the menace behind it. "I'll make sure you regret the day you decided to take me on."

"I'm sure you'll do your best." Larry replied and turned away as Kish faded out.

-

Lettuce was the first to arrive on the scene, and she skidded to a halt on the opposite side of the street just as Larry picked up Ichigo again from where he'd left her. She was about to call out to him when she noticed he was looking strangely at the girl in his arms. To her utter amazement, he bent his head down and gently kissed her on the forehead, before saying something she couldn't hear.

Blushing, she finally awkwardly called out. "Larry!"

He jumped and went red himself, before crossing the road. "Lettuce, when did you..."

"Um...Only now, when I called you," She said, wanting to spare the young man the embarrassment. "Keiichiro told us what happened to Ichigo. Where's the Chimera Animal?"

"Gone. I managed to defeat it."

"And Ichigo?"

Ichigo answered that question herself, muttering something and moving in his arms. Larry put her down on the bench next to where they were standing and looked at the green-haired girl.

"She'll be fine - I managed to get here in time. I'm going to get going."

"But..."

Larry smiled. "Relax, I'm not going to repeat what I did last night. I just want some time to get used to this," He held out his arms, as if to demonstrate his entire transformed state. "Take care of her for me, will you?"

Lettuce nodded, and Larry left. The others arrived just as he jumped onto a streetlight and used it to leap to a tree on the other side, before disappearing between two buildings. Pudding was none-too-pleased by the development, and she said it.

"I missed the boy Mew? That's not fair!" She sat down on the bench, only realising she was sulking on top of Ichigo when the latter let out a short yelp as Pudding dropped onto her stomach.

"What happened?" Ichigo said, sitting up and looking puzzled. "Kish? The Chimera Animal? Did you guys beat it?"

"As much as I'd like to take credit for this," Mint replied, sounding mildly put-off now that she knew Ichigo wasn't in any danger. "It was the renegade that tried to convince me he was actually a girl."

When it became evident that Ichigo's slightly rattled brain wasn't making a lot of sense of Mint's cryptic messages, Lettuce said simply: "It was Larry. Keiichiro and Ryou told him what was happening and he rushed over here."

"Larry?" Ichigo looked around. "Where is he?"

"He left," When Lettuce saw the looks on everyone's faces, she hurriedly added: "He said he just wants some time to get used to it. From what I could tell...He's with us now."

"How can you be sure?" Mint asked pointedly, causing Lettuce to blush again as she recalled what she had seen a few minutes before, and merely mumbled something that sounded like: "Female intuition." Finally, when they were sure Ichigo was alright, they made their separate ways back home, though Lettuce walked with Ichigo since her house was on the way.

"Thanks, Lettuce," Ichigo said when they arrived at her front gate.

"It was no trouble," The green-haired girl replied. "Are you sure you're okay?"

"Yeah, I'll be fine. Listen...What do you honestly think? Is Larry with us? I really want to believe it, but the fact that he made a deal with Kish..."

"I believe he is," Lettuce said firmly. "But if you want to be sure, maybe you should ask him yourself when you next see him."

"Alright. 'Bye, Lettuce."

"Goodbye, Ichigo."

-

Larry looked out over the city from the roof of the building he'd been sitting on for the past half an hour or so, just getting used to being transformed without an alien or a huge chameleon trying to kill him. As far as he'd been able to tell, he was pretty good at climbing things, he was faster and more agile (not nearly to the level of the girls, but whole lot more than he had been as a lumbering six-foot, 230 pound guy) and the extra set of ears meant his hearing was a lot sharper now.

"Come to enjoy the sunset?" He said to seemingly no-one, glancing back from the air-conditioning unit where he was sitting.

"No, I just came to talk to one of the most confusing boys I've ever met," Ichigo, transformed too, walked up next to the AC unit and looked at Larry. "The last time I saw you, you had made a deal with Kish and told me you hoped I'd get hit in the face by a door. Now you came running when I was in trouble, breaking that deal while you were at it."

Larry chuckled. "You act like you females have the monopoly on being confusing and hard to read," He shifted a bit and indicated she should sit down. "I've got a pretty long story to tell you, so you'd be well-served to have a seat."

Ichigo hopped on next to him and Larry started telling her the story of why he was here, what had happened with Melanie and how the fight with Alan had been the final straw. Ichigo nodded, finally understanding what Larry had meant by the comments he had made in his kitchen. When he stopped, they sat in silence for a few seconds, then she turned her head towards him.

"So why did you change your mind?"

He glanced sideways at her, and she recognised the black eyes she had seen the morning he had been knocked out in front of the café. But despite their colour, they still had the same calm, interested glint in them.

"I guess I found something I wanted to fight for."

"What?"

Smiling, he stood and dusted off the back of his pants. "That, my dear neko-chan, is something I'd like to keep to myself for a while," He jumped off and started to leave, but paused next to her. "I'm glad you're okay."

She gave him a smile that made him feel absurdly giddy, and slightly ashamed of himself - damnit, he wasn't some 12-year-old having his first crush. But all the same, there was no use in denying that Ichigo had a pretty big effect on him, whether it was as the pink-haired, cat-tailed saviour of the world or as the ditzy, brown-haired waitress who had dumped milkshake on him.

"I'm glad you changed your mind. And thanks for saving me."

Larry waved his hand dismissively. "You probably could have taken him if I'd have given you five more minutes. I'll see you around, Ichigo."

"Bye, Larry."

The young girl watched him disappear around the corner and turned back to watch the sunset. She sighed a bit, thinking that this might be a bit more enjoyable with company. Her thoughts almost immediately jumped to Masaya, but for a brief second, she imagined another boy sitting next to her.

I'll leave it up to your imagination as to who it was...

-

The next morning, Lettuce let out a yawn big enough to almost cause her glasses to slip off. Pudding was fast asleep on Ichigo's shoulder, who herself was nodding off every few seconds. Only Mint looked fairly awake, and none-too-pleased with being called in so early.

Finally, Ryou came downstairs and looked at his crew of sleepy waitresses. "I'm glad to see you're all on time."

"Ryou, why are we here?" Ichigo asked, trying to shift her arm without waking Pudding, but all she managed was to send her tumbling off the bench. The youngest Mew hit the floor, merely mumbled, and carried on sleeping.

"Because I want to introduce you to..."

"I am NOT wearing a freaking' bow tie!" A familiar voice, sounding very indignant, interrupted him.

"Yes, you will," Keiichiro's voice, sounding as calm as always, replied. "We don't have a male uniform and we need you to look respectable. I've already let you off wearing the hat."

"No wa..."

"We could always let you wear the girls' uniform."

"...Give me that."

Ryou smiled slightly and indicated the kitchen. "Ladies and...Well, just ladies, the newest member of Tokyo Mew Mew and also Café Mew Mew's newest worker..."

Larry stepped out of the kitchen, looking very disgruntled at being made to wear anything apart from jeans and t-shirts. He was wearing the exact same clothes as Keiichiro - white shirt buttoned to the top, black pants and a black bow tie.

"Not a word," Larry said, his eyes emphasising his sentence. "Not one single word."

Of course, at that point, Pudding woke up and when she sleepily saw Larry, her eyes widened. "AHH! They've cloned Keiichiro."


	8. Intersecting Hearts

**Like Two Sides Of A Coin**

**Written by Asuka's Knight**

Your standard disclaimer: I don't own Tokyo Mew Mew, nor do I make any money from it. Blah-Blah, yada-yada, I really don't think I need to be wasting your time with stuff like this so let's get right to the reason you decided to come here, namely the fic. Let me know what you think, and if there are any improvements you believe I can make. Oh yeah, and thanks for taking the time out to read it.

Like I said before I only know the dub, Mew Mew Power, but I'll be doing my best to accurately use the Japanese names and attacks. I'd appreciate it if you kept this in mind when you review. Just to clarify things, this fic takes place before Zakuro joins the mews.

However, I am going to use everyone's dub ages except Keiichiro. This is just a personal preference, but I apologise if it offends anyone. All my information regarding the Japanese names, attacks, age _et al _came from Mew Mew Power Uncensored so I'm giving the credit where credit is due.

My usual thanks to everyone who reviewed the last chapter - good to know people are still interested in reading it even if my updating is becoming a little anaemic. However, I am on holiday now until the 2nd of February next year, so I promise at least 3 new chapters before then.

There isn't going to be a whole lot of main plot advancement in this chapter, but I am going to try and further Ichigo and Larry's relationship. I realise that breaking up established couples and pairing them with original characters is often a big no-no in anime fanfiction, so I'd appreciate it if you would let me know in your reviews if I'm doing it well enough, or if I'm majorly screwing it up.

Suffice it to say, very hardcore Ichigo/Masaya fans might become very upset with me in this chapter, and the following ones, and for that I apologise. But if you don't mind a couple of plot twists shaking up a story, then keep reading - I'll do my best to not disappoint.

Now after making you sit through that long-ass author's note, let's get you to the main reason you came here, which I'm sure isn't my amazing ability to digress.

Chapter Eight - Intersecting Hearts

-

Ichigo sighed as she shut her locker door. The start of yet another school day, and she was exhausted - she had barely gotten any sleep in-between having to work late at the café yet again (if Larry hadn't offered to stay behind and help, she probably would have never finished - she didn't know why he volunteered to stay, and when she'd asked him, he mumbled something about being bored at home and quickly changed the subject) and staying up until 2 am to finish her Geometry she had gotten maybe four hours of sleep and she envisaged dozing off in all her classes again today. But school wasn't always bad. After all, she could see...

"Morning, Ichigo." She jumped, and then spun around so quickly she dropped her books. Masaya Aoyama smiled and bent to retrieve them.

"Ahaha..." She laughed in her usual embarrassed way, scratching the back of her head. "I'm such a ditz. Thanks, Masaya."

"My pleasure. You ran off pretty quickly after class yesterday - was anything wrong?"

Ichigo took her books, smiling. "No, just the slave driver known as my boss who won't let up. I swear, he probably sits around all day coming up with things for me to do."

"Oh, that's too bad," Masaya said, reddening a little. "I was hoping to walk home with you."

"Wha-wha-what?" Ichigo's mouth hung open at what he said, trying to come up with a suitable reply, before turning crimson. She was still standing there, open-mouthed and red when the bell for the start of classes went.

Masaya looked at her hopefully for another few seconds, then said: "Well, I guess I'd better get to class. I'll see you later, Ichigo."

She watched him leave, then turned around and banged her head against her locker. "Stupid-stupid-stupid!"

"Uh...Ichigo? Are you okay?" Moe's voice, sounding vaguely disturbed made her turn around.

"Yeah, we're used to you sometimes talking to yourself, but the head banging is new." Miwa added.

Ichigo blushed again, then made a show of checking her watch. "Wow, we'd better get to class, huh?" And ran off, leaving her friends following, both shaking their heads knowingly.

-

Weekday mornings were one of Keiichiro's favourite times at the café. They normally weren't too busy, since their usual customers were in school and they mostly had older people or mothers with preschool children. It was a good thing too, as he often had to play waiter as the girls usually didn't come in until the afternoon. Now, however, it wasn't necessary anymore.

"I'm going to need three more of those chocolate mousse slices, Keiichiro. I don't know what you put in them, but the old age home folks can't get enough."

Keiichiro smiled as he handed Larry three more plates. The young man seemed to have gotten used to both working in the café and the uniform, even if he still looked mildly miffed when he came out of the locker-room after having gotten changed. He seemed to enjoy his work, chatting with the customers (especially the female ones) and appeared to have a soft spot for the smaller children. All-in-all, he was a good addition to the staff and the team.

"Thanks. Are we going to close for lunch soon? I'm starving."

"You can put up the sign so long – as soon as these customers leave, we can take a break."

Nodding, he took the plates and after he had handed them to the table of old people, he went up to the door and hung up a sign that read "Closed for lunch, please come back later."

Ryou came up from the basement just then, scratching his head and looking at Larry who was busy entertaining one of the kids with a few basic magic tricks, finally ending it by pulling a gumball from a seemingly empty napkin. Laughing, the girl took it and Larry smiled slightly as she and her mother left.

"He is way too good with kids for someone who's been up since five this morning." Ryou said, sitting down at the table.

"Actually, it's since four," Keiichiro chuckled. "Remember, people don't just materialise fully dressed and ready after waking up."

"That makes it even scarier."

Larry walked into the kitchen at that point, giving Ryou a companionable clap on the shoulder as he sat down. "Finally come up for air, Shirogane?"

"I'm just up here to make sure that you're doing your job and not throwing a slice of carrot cake at someone again," Ryou replied dryly. "It tends to be bad for business."

"Hey, that guy deserved it!" Larry said, waving his arms defensively. "Considering what a jackass he was being to that girl, he should be glad the carrot cake is the only thing I decided to hit him with."

Keiichiro cleared his throat, ending their discussion. "I'm about to fix us some lunch – Ryou, would you like something?"

"Just my usual, thanks, Keiichiro…What?" Larry had suddenly started chuckling to himself, looking very amused at something.

"Well…" He removed his hand from his mouth, showing a slightly twisted smile. "I was just thinking of the scenario here: Three guys, all of whom can be considered above-average looking, sitting in a pink café with a cat statue on top with no women in sight. Man, if this was an anime, I'm betting the fangirls would be jumping onto their PCs right around now."

Larry looked up, getting a wooden stare from Ryou. "I don't get it."

"You…Don't get it?" Larry said, his eyes widening a little in surprise. "Aren't you supposed to be some kind of genius?"

"I have to be honest, Larry," Keiichiro said, looking confused. "I don't get it either."

Larry raised an eyebrow, and then decided it would be better to not elaborate – he was guessing at the very least, he'd put the others off their food at the explanation of a Yaoi fanfic, and at the worst (and this was very possible, since they were uninformed enough to not get what he was talking about) he'd mentally scar them and make it so they'd never be able to look at each other without seeing…Yeah…

"Eh, don't worry about it," Larry finally said, dismissing the topic and getting himself a Coke from the fridge. He snapped it open and started drinking.

"Alright," Keiichiro said, turning towards Ryou. "So, how do sausages sound to you two? Larry, are you alright?"

Larry had suddenly started choking, the mouthful of Coke having gone down the wrong pipe. Ryou gave him a sharp slap on the back, and he finally croaked: "Just peachy."

Ten minutes later, Ryou had gone to take a phone call in his office and Larry had just finished fixing himself a huge roast beef and cheese sandwich. With an eager look on his face, he rubbed his hands and lifted the sandwich...

"Larry," Ryou came out of the office, looking right at his newest employee, who wasn't looking too pleased. "We need you to go make a delivery first."

Larry looked over the sandwich at Ryou, the stony silence only broken by the dripping of gravy onto the plate. "You're _kidding_ me, right?"

"I don't kid," Ryou replied, indicating the cake Keiichiro had just brought out of the pantry. "The school's having a farewell party for one of their teachers, and it's going to start in less than 30 minutes."

Keiichiro looked apologetic. "I'm sorry, Larry - I completely forgot it was today."

"Apology accepted," Larry replied, looking back at his sandwich. "But I'm not going."

Ryou waited until he opened his mouth to take a bite, then said "It's at Ichigo's school."

That gave the male Mew pause. "And that should change my mind why?"

"Did I say it should? I just thought it might be something you would like to know. Also, if you hurry, you may just catch them as they're coming out."

Larry raised an eyebrow. Shirogane was way too observant for his own good, but then again, Larry had never been the most complex person to understand - he had one of those faces you could just read stuff off of. Ryou had probably just seen one of those goofy grins he seemed to sprout when near the red-haired girl.

"Fine, I'll go," Larry said, giving the sandwich a last mournful glance, before starting to loosen his bow tie. "Put it in a box - I'll be ready in a minute."

Exactly a minute later, he jogged back in, dressed in his normal clothes, and caught the look on Ryou's face. "I'm not riding my bike dressed in that."

"Bike?"

"Yeah, my parents sent my motorbike over. I was getting a little tired of walking, and it worked out cheaper than renting a car."

"You're going to carry a cake on a motorcycle?"

"Of course. Don't worry - I'll make sure nothing happens to your precious confectionary."

Still a little doubtful, Ryou handed Larry the box. "If you see Ichigo, remind her about the thing on Friday."

"Will do."

Keiichiro glanced at Ryou, smiling a bit as they heard the motorcycle outside pull off. "You know, sometimes I think you could talk the devil into setting himself on fire."

-

"So that is how you work out the circumference of a circle - we take the length of the radius and multiply it by two times pi. Now, remember that pi is a constant and...Miss Momomiya? Am I boring you?"

"Nya!" Ichigo bolted upright, startled out of her daydream by mister Nakashima's voice. Her classmates were all looking at her in an amused way, while her maths teacher had a look of annoyance on his face.

"May I remind you," He said a little tersely. "That it's still only Wednesday. The weekend begins at 2 'o clock Friday afternoon. Now, if you don't mind, we can get back to circular measure."

Ichigo sat there and felt herself drifting off again as the teacher went on about degrees and radians and pi. After what felt like an eternity, she looked up at the clock on the wall and saw that only five minutes had passed and that there was still fifteen minutes left of the day. Finally, she couldn't take it any longer and put up her hand.

"Yes, Ichigo?"

"May I please go to the bathroom?" She could kill at least five minutes going to the bathroom and coming back, ten if she walked really slowly.

"The class is almost over. Can't you wait another fifteen minutes? Oh, alright. Just don't take the entirety of what's left of the lesson."

Smiling, Ichigo left the class and started walking towards the bathroom at a leisurely pace, noticing as she walked past the staff room that it was decorated and a gorgeous cake stood on the table. It seemed the staff was going to have miss Akagi's farewell party after school. Musing about what possible jobs the friendly grey-haired first grade teacher could do after this, she didn't see the janitor's cart standing off the side and abruptly tripped over one of his brooms lying carelessly on the floor. However, her reflexes kicked in and she landed on her feet.

"Ha, I knew that day in the café was a fluke." Ichigo said to herself, quite happily turning around to carry on and failed to see the bucket of dirty water in front of her and again stumbled, but this time she found herself teetering unsteadily on her left toes for a split-second before taking a head-first fall towards the tile floor.

"Nya!" At that moment, someone came around the corner and Ichigo blindly grabbed them around the neck, stopping her fall as the person held her around the waist to help her get to her feet properly.

"Is it just me," A familiar voice said. "Or do you seem to fall a lot more often when I'm around?"

Ichigo opened her eyes to find she had been caught by Larry, who was looking fairly amused at this whole situation. A low flush rose in the red-head's face as she saw she still had her arms around his neck from the fall, while his own were circled around her small waist. The red deepened when she became conscious of that fact that they were close enough for her to feel the heat coming off his body and it made her feel absurdly comfortable and protected, a feeling she had only felt before with Masaya.

"Haha..." She laughed nervously. "Yeah, usually when I fall I land like a..."

"Like a cat?" He offered, trying to not laugh.

"Yeah, like a cat." She suddenly started giggling and Larry joined in, laughing softly. Neither of them noticed that the bell had gone for the end of the day and that students were busy filing out of their classes, shooting several bemused glances at the two of them with their arms wrapped around each other.

In fact, they only became aware of this when a throat was cleared loudly behind them and Ichigo immediately released Larry when she saw Moe and Miwa standing behind them, Miwa carrying her bag and both with slightly smug and knowing looks on their faces.

"So this is where you were?" Miwa said, casting an appraising eye over the young man standing behind Ichigo. "We thought maybe you had gotten lost, but it seems you know right where you wanted to be."

Ichigo blushed bright-red, and Larry decided to step in to save her some more embarrassment. "Afternoon, ladies," Larry said, holding out his hand and putting on the brightest, most lady killer-esque smile he could manage. "I apologise for leaving my manners behind and not introducing myself. My name is Larry, and I'm pleased to see Ichigo keeps such fine and lovely company," The two girls smiled widely as Larry pulled out the charm, and they took turns shaking his hand. "I was just passing by when Ichigo took a bit of a fall, and dumb luck kicked in and I managed to catch her. Isn't that right, Ichigo?"

"Huh? Oh, yeah!" Ichigo finally recovered from her embarrassment as her complexion returned to normal. Miwa and Moe shared a small look and they left the two of them in the hallway, giggling behind their hands.

Giving a small sigh, Ichigo then looked curiously at Larry. "Hey, just what are you doing here?

"I had to come deliver a cake for some teacher's farewell. If you're heading to the café, I can give you a lift."

"Yeah, that'd be nice," Ichigo suddenly spotted Masaya coming towards them and a goofy smile Larry easily recognised (since he sported it so often himself) came onto her face. "Hi, Masaya."

"Afternoon, Ichigo," Masaya gave Larry a friendly, if slightly searching glance. "Masaya Aoyama. Nice to meet you."

"Larry Linford, good to meet you too," Larry smiled, even if he suddenly felt like someone had taken a sledgehammer to his stomach. He remembered his earlier joking thought about how all the good ones were taken, but...Something deep inside told him that he had lost Ichigo, long before he even started liking her. He might not be the sharpest pencil in the box, but he knew enough to read the body language between the two sixteen-year-olds.

"Hey, Larry," Ichigo didn't even spare him a glance as she looked at Masaya. "I'll meet you outside, okay?"

"Yeah, sure..." Doing a pretty good job at hiding his disappointment, Larry turned to leave, and then suddenly remembered what Ryou had told him. "Oh, yeah - Ryou told me to remind you about the thing on Friday."

"The thing on Friday?" Ichigo looked puzzled as Larry left, and then she remembered. Ryou was organising a second party at the café after the first one had gotten unceremoniously crashed by Kish's Chimera Animal. He told them that if they wanted, they could bring a friend with them - in fact, it would probably be for the better since there would be dancing again.

Looking at Masaya, she turned red before she managed to start speaking. "Um...Masaya? Ryou's having a party on Friday, and we're allowed to bring a friend and I was wondering if..." She mumbled something inaudibly before saying: "...With me?"

Masaya smiled slightly. "Are you asking me to go with you?"

"Well, only if you're not busy, I mean, I know you probably have a lot to do-"

"I'd love to."

"-What with the kendo club and..." She suddenly stopped rambling, her mouth an "O" of surprise as what he had just said sunk into her skull. "You'd love to?"

"Yes, I'd love to go with you. What should I wear?"

"Umm, well, I'll ask Ryou today and I'll phone you. Is that okay?"

"That's fine," Masaya picked up his gym bag and turned to head to practice. "I'll see you tomorrow then, Ichigo."

The red-head watched him leave, and then when she was sure that he was out of earshot she leapt into the air, balling her fist as a whoop of victory left her mouth. Smiling from ear to ear, she ran out to join Larry - this day couldn't get better.

-

Mint watched Ichigo buzzing around the café while she drank her tea, raising an eyebrow at the girl humming happily while she busied herself.

"Exactly what's wrong with her?" Mint asked Lettuce, who was busy cleaning the table next to her.

Lettuce looked up at Ichigo and smiled to herself. "Must be that boy she keeps talking about."

"Oh, him..." Mint said dismissively and then looked at Larry who was almost the exact opposite of Ichigo today. Looking like his mind was a million miles away and more than a little depressed, he was busy mopping the floor on the other side of the cafe. Eventually, he just dumped the mop in the bucket and headed to the locker-room, mumbling about taking a beak.

"Now just look at that," Mint said as she watched him leave, still drinking her tea. "Slacking off and leaving us to do all the hard work."

Chewing her bottom lip, Lettuce left her sponge where it was and followed the young man. She found him leaning against his locker, his head resting on his arm as he mumbled what sounded like "Stupid-stupid-stupid!" underneath his breath.

"You saw her with him, didn't you?" Lettuce said quietly, causing Larry to jump and slam into the locker as he turned around.

Putting on a fake smile, Larry shook his head. "I don't know what you're talking about, Lettuce."

"Larry...I know you probably think I'm dumb, but I've been watching you all afternoon. You're miserable, and it's because of Ichigo - I heard about you delivering something to her school, so you probably saw her with Masaya."

Larry's smile faltered for a second, before he chuckled. "Lettuce, even if you're right, why would that upset me?"

The green-haired girl lifted her head and looked him in the eyes. "Because you have feelings for her. I saw you kissing her after you beat the Chimera Animal and it's just written on your face every time you look at her. It's okay..." She said as she saw him about to protest. "You don't have to worry, I won't tell anyone."

With a sigh, Larry sat down on the bench and looked up at her. "Well, that makes two now: You and Ryou know. Man, this is such a mess - I came here to try and sort out my life and instead I get turned into a tiger and fall for a girl who I've got no chance with."

Lettuce didn't know what to say to him - she really had very little experience when it came to romance and love. The young girl sat down next to Larry and hesitantly put her hand on his shoulder. Larry looked at her, a little surprised, then just smiled. They sat there quietly for a while, and then Lettuce finally cleared her throat.

"So...Who are you going to ask to the dance?"

"Honestly? Ichigo was the only person I had in mind...Guess I'll be just be going with me, myself and I."

"They seem to be cheating on me," Lettuce chuckled a little mournfully. "And we were going steady as well."

"Please. Only someone with a lop-sided face like me can complain about not finding a date. Any guy would be lucky to have you."

"You don't have to try to make me feel better, Larry," Lettuce replied, pulling her hand back and clasping both in her lap. "I'm not pretty, I'm clumsy and I'm a geek."

"Hey now," Larry put an arm around Lettuce and made her look at him. "Whoever told you you're not pretty has got to get glasses...Or maybe an eye transplant. You're beautiful, Lettuce, and you shouldn't let anyone tell you otherwise. I'd go into detail about everything that makes you beautiful, but we'd be here all night. As for being clumsy, well, everyone has their own faults and weaknesses. Ichigo's is that she's very excitable and quick to anger, Mint's is being more than a little obnoxious and arrogant and Pudding just has way too much energy and doesn't always think things through. Mine...Well, mine is a really bad temper. If you ever see me get mad to the point where I actually bare my teeth, get away quickly. And finally, having half a braincell and enjoying doing well at your schoolwork doesn't make you a geek. The people who call you a geek? Well, they're going to be lucky to end up as janitors in future. You're a real good catch - smart, funny, caring and cute."

Lettuce had been steadily growing redder as Larry spoke, until his final sentence just pushed her beyond tomato-red and into something probably not even on the colour spectrum. Lowering her head, she mouthed "Thank you..."

Laughing slightly, Larry gave her a one-armed hug. "You don't have to thank me for telling the truth, Lettuce. I should be thanking you for trying to comfort a guy you've barely known two weeks. You've helped me a bit, so thank you."

"We're even then," Lettuce finally looked up, the redness diminished slightly as she gave Larry a smile. "And for the record, you're not lop-sided and if any guy would be happy to have me then a girl would be ecstatic to have you. Well, I'd better get back to finishing up. I'll see you in a few, Larry."

She gently shook herself out of his grip and left the locker-room. Watching her leave, Larry went over to his locker and opened it, pulling out his jeans and t-shirt. His work for the afternoon was pretty much done, so he didn't think Ryou would have any trouble if he helped the girls with their chores in his normal clothes.

-

"You two were in there quite a while," Mint replied, smirking as Lettuce came out, still a little red. "Is there anything we should know about?"

Of course, that drove the shy girl right back into redness and she was trying to struggle for an answer when Ichigo waltzed up to them, her smile not having diminished any.

"So, what are you two talking about on this beautiful day?" She asked cheerfully.

"Oh, not much," Mint replied, smiling slightly behind her tea cup. "Just that our aquatic friend here seems to be getting hot and heavy with a certain feline."

"Really?" Ichigo glanced at Lettuce and she clapped the green-haired girl on the shoulder. "That's brilliant. You two would make a great couple!"

Lettuce finally managed to sputter: "There's nothing between me and Larry...He likes someone else."

"Is that so?" Mint asked, and she and Ichigo both leaned closer, suddenly very interested. "Who?"

"I can't say..."

"I know," Ichigo glanced mischievously at Mint. "It's Mint, isn't it?"

Mint snorted. "Please. I wouldn't give that scruffy-haired ruffian the time of day. What about Pudding?"

"A bit of an age gap, don't you think?" Ichigo asked, looking at Pudding juggling several sponges.

"Love knows no age or beauty, my dear Ichigo."

"Then there's hope for you yet." Ichigo replied a little cattily (no pun intended)

"Both of you, calm down," Lettuce interrupted before the two girls could get into a fight. "It's not Mint and it's not Pudding."

"Then who?" Mint pointed her thumb at the red-haired girl next to her. "It can't be Miss Ditz over here."

"HEY!" Ichigo got in Mint's face, her hand coming down hard on the table. "Just why wouldn't Larry like me?"

"Because you're madly in love with Nature Boy?" Mint asked, looking at Ichigo strangely. "And just why are you so upset by what I just said?"

Pausing, Ichigo noticed that Lettuce was also looking at her, confusion on both her friends' faces. She was saved by her phone ringing, and excused herself, blushing. When she saw it was Masaya's number, she felt herself smiling and she answered.

"Hi, Masaya! Sorry I haven't phoned you back yet, but it's been insane here. Listen, about the dress code, Ryou said that..."

_"Ichigo..."_ Masaya's voice was quiet and a little hesitant, causing her smile to dim a bit. Suddenly, deep in her gut, she knew this good day wasn't going to last.

"What's wrong?"

_"When I got to kendo practice today, my coach reminded me about the inter-school tournament that we're competing in...It's on Friday."_

That feeling earlier when Larry felt like he'd just taken a sledgehammer to the gut? Poor Ichigo suddenly felt the same way. Her smile now completely gone, it was pretty much all she could do to stop tearing up, though she was doing a pretty good job of it.

"Oh...You can't make the dance, I assume."

_"I'm really sorry, Ichigo. I guess in the excitement of you asking me, I forgot. I'll make it up to you some time, I promise. In fact, there's a park near..."_

"It's okay, Masaya," She interrupted, even though she was blatantly lying. "I understand. I'll see you tomorrow."

Ichigo slid her phone into the front of her apron and saw Mint and Lettuce looking at her. Keeping her head down so they couldn't see the beginnings of tears, she went into the locker-room and shut the door behind her. Leaning against the door, she sniffed once but immediately went silent as a startled yell made her look up.

"Whoa! Sorry, I didn't hear you come in," Ichigo looked up to see Larry half-dressed, having just fastened the belt around his jeans and was busy reaching for his shirt. The young man looked up and suddenly noticed the tears in her eyes. "Neko-chan? What's wrong?"

"Nothing..." She replied, lowering her head again and of course, a deaf and dumb raccoon that had recently been lobotomised could see she wasn't telling the truth. Larry walked over to the younger girl and gently lifted her face so he could look at her.

"Hey..." Her eyes were closed, but tears were now flowing freely as she cried near-silently. "C'mon, tell me what happened. I promise, you can tell me what's wrong - I won't tell anyone."

Ichigo opened her eyes and looked at Larry, his face showing nothing but concern for her. She remembered the first day she saw him, how it looked like someone had painted the slightly cold, uncaring expression over his real face. She drew in a shocked breath as Larry folded his arms around her, hugging her against his naked chest.

Her first thought (_He's so warm..._) was followed by her returning the hug as she haltingly began telling the story of what had happened. Larry didn't say a word the whole time - he just held her close to him and seemed unmindful of the remnants of her tears cutting a path down his chest and abdomen. When it ended, Ichigo went silent and rested her head against Larry's shoulder, for the first time noticing his injection mark on his upper arm.

"I'm sorry..." Larry finally said, pulling her out of her reverie.

"It's not your fault," She replied quietly, lifting her head from his shoulder to look at him. "You've got nothing to be sorry for, unless you were the one who planned that Kendo contest."

Larry laughed a little. "Reflexive action...If you want, neko-chan..." Ichigo tilted her head slightly as Larry went a little red, seemingly struggling with words. Luckily he recovered in a few seconds. "...We could go to the dance together."

A little shocked, Ichigo looked at Larry, biting her lip as her brown eyes searched his. After what felt like an eternity, she seemed to be ready to give him an answer...


	9. The Night

Like Two Sides Of A Coin

**Like Two Sides Of A Coin**

**Written by Asuka's Knight**

Your standard disclaimer: I don't own Tokyo Mew Mew, nor do I make any money from it. Blah-Blah, yada-yada, I really don't think I need to be wasting your time with stuff like this so let's get right to the reason you decided to come here, namely the fic. Let me know what you think, and if there are any improvements you believe I can make. Oh yeah, and thanks for taking the time out to read it.

Like I said before I only know the dub, Mew Mew Power, but I'll be doing my best to accurately use the Japanese names and attacks. I'd appreciate it if you kept this in mind when you review. Just to clarify things, this fic takes place before Zakuro joins the mews.

However, I am going to use everyone's dub ages except Keiichiro. This is just a personal preference, but I apologise if it offends anyone. All my information regarding the Japanese names, attacks, age et al came from Mew Mew Power Uncensored so I'm giving the credit where credit is due.

Ugh, okay, so my last update promise turned out to be a total bust. A combination of classes and a slight bout of emo-ness pretty much evaporated my creativity and drive to write, but I'm back now and back to normal...Well, whatever normal is for a fanfic writer. I just thought I'd give a special thank you to Mew-Blueberry. Her review was pretty much what got me back on-board with trying to write this, so for better or worse, this chapter's because of you...Thanks.

One last thing – I have a small poll in my author's profile you might like taking a look at if you've enjoyed things so far. I'm not saying the story will end according to just the votes, but since I enjoy writing for fellow fans, I'll be paying a fair amount of attention to it.

Right then, now that that's out of the way...Onto the story!

Chapter 9 – The Night

-

...And of course like any good story, the road to that answer wasn't going to be smooth. Just as she was about to answer him, the door swung open and Pudding came skipping in while singing happily to herself. She put the mop and bucket into the maintenance closet and then skipped out again without even looking at the two who had damn-near stopped breathing and were standing stock-still. When Pudding had left, they let go of each other almost simultaneously and Larry quickly grabbed his shirt, laughing nervously.

"Yeah, I think I should get dressed."

"That would probably be a good idea," Ichigo said, smiling a bit. "Mint's already got theories about you and Lettuce."

"Really?" Larry asked, slipping the shirt back over his head and pulling the hem down over his jeans. "And what did Lettuce say about that?"

"That you liked someone else," Ichigo's brown eyes searched the older boy's face. "Care to share?"

"The same day I tell you why I decided to stay, I'll tell you her name," Larry replied, laughing at the slightly disgruntled look on her face. "Hey, a guy has to have some secrets to make him all mysterious-like."

"Secrets just tend to complicate things..." Was Ichigo's reply as she looked away, remembering all the times her double life had nearly torpedoed her chances with Masaya. For a selfish instant, Larry didn't want to say anything, thinking that perhaps she'd see Masaya was a lost hope - that her changes would keep them apart and maybe...Maybe she'd turn to someone who had a better idea of what she was going through.

"Maybe," He finally said, smiling a bit. "But I like to believe love can overcome any complications."

She looked back at him and he was rewarded with a small smile that again sent a shiver down his spine. "That's not something you hear coming from a guy every day."

"Heh...Larry Linford, hopeless romantic since he was old enough to figure out you girls aren't as icky as he first thought. I blame all the chick flicks my mom made me watch with her before I knew better."

"You poor child," Ichigo replied, giggling slightly. "Although if I were you, I'd thank her - how many guys can say they know the female mind?"

"Know the female mind?" Snorting, Larry retrieved his cellphone and wallet from the locker and slid them into his pockets. "After two million years we unfortunate souls known as 'males' still have no clue about what goes on in there, and I doubt the next two million are going to make a difference either."

"As if you men are easier to read. Oh, real mature," She said as Larry's response was to just stick his tongue out at her. They both grew silent, but it wasn't an oppressive one. Rather, it was just two people who felt comfortable in each other's company. "I should probably get back to helping the others finish up."

"Neko-chan..."

"Hmm?"

Fidgeting a little, Larry smiled sheepishly as he scratched the back of his head. "You never said if you'd go with me."

"Ugh..." The young girl smacked her forehead, sighing in frustration at her own absent-mindedness. When she saw Larry looking a little disappointed, she quickly held her hands out in front of her, shaking them and her head in denial. "No-no-no, that 'ugh' wasn't because of you. I'd love to go with you, and I'm glad you asked me."

"You're glad?" Realising that looking a gift horse right in the mouth was probably insatiably stupid, Larry forged ahead anyway, intrigued. "Why?"

"Well, because when Masaya told me he wouldn't be able to come, I didn't feel like even going to the stupid thing at all and now I do," Ichigo's one arm crossed her chest to gently grasp her other as she tried to find the words. "I guess it's just nice knowing I'll have someone to talk to if the others are off dancing or doing whatever."

With that said, a lightly blushing Ichigo turned and accidentally banged into the door before remembering to open it, and left. Larry waited until the door was closed before releasing what he had been suppressing this whole time.

"WOOOOO!"

Had she been any less refined, Mint likely would have spat out her tea at the loud noise that abruptly emanated from the locker-room. Startled, Lettuce dropped the plate she had been handling and it shattered into several dozen pieces on the floor.

"Kish has made a water-buffalo Chimera Animal!" Pudding squeaked out before losing her balance and falling off in an ungainly heap. "Mews, assemble!"

"I highly doubt that was a water buffalo," Mint calmly dabbed at her mouth with a napkin before giving Larry a withering stare as he emerged from the room, looking supremely pleased with himself. "Though you weren't far off."

"What's all this noise about?" Ryou stuck his head out the small window between the kitchen and café, needing only one look to realise where it had come from and what the reason was before he withdrew again.

"So what has your staff been up to now, Ryou?" Keiichiro asked the younger man with a light chuckle.

"I'm guessing Larry somehow managed to get Ichigo to go to the party with him."

"You sound pretty sure of yourself."

Glancing out the serving window again, Ryou's eyes focussed on the male Mew's large smile...And the pair of tiger ears that had emerged once more from the sea of tangled dark hair, both of which were wriggling happily.

"What can I say, I'm psychic."

-

"So you say there is now a fifth one of these humans to be dealt with? Interesting..."

On one knee, Kish hoped Deep Blue couldn't see his brow furrowing. Those five flea-ridden humans were the only thing standing between him and his people returning home, and their leader declared the newest roadblock "interesting"?

"I guess it is. But I know what his weakness is, Deep Blue, and he will be easy to deal with."

"I would sincerely hope so, Kish," The voice's tone never changed, but Kish could tell there was a certain measure of contempt behind it. "I would hate to think you were lying when you told me you didn't need more help to take care of them."

"There is no need to worry, Deep Blue," Kish rose to his feet and turned his back to the leader, almost gnawing away at his lower lip to keep his own voice level. "I will deal with them once and for all. And _he's_ my first target..."

-

Whining slightly, Cleo poked her head out from under the shirt that Larry had blindly thrown behind him and landed on her, his search through his wardrobe seemingly reaching desperate proportions. Finally, he heaved a heavy sigh and slumped to the floor, his back against the now-empty cupboard.

"What am I going to do, girl?" He asked the German Shepard as she padded next to him and flopped down as well, a sock still hanging haphazardly behind one ear. "I've had what, like one formal outfit and that's sitting back home."

Picking the sock off her head, Larry began scratching behind the puppy's ears as he tried to figure out what to do. He'd spent the rest of Wednesday in an almost stupidly happy daze after Ichigo had accepted his invitation and as such hadn't really given much thought to anything else. However, when he had pulled himself out of bed this afternoon and stumbled into the shower, he suddenly realised one very important thing: The majority of his clothing was jeans, T-shirts and a solitary jacket, none of which he could exactly wear to a party where formal dress was required. Now after thirty minutes of throwing all his clothes in an untidy pile on the floor, that realisation had become a fact. There was only one thing left to do...

"I _hate_ going shopping for clothes."

-

"I _love _going shopping for clothes!" Ichigo squealed as she and the other Mews all strolled into the cafe, each bearing a bag filled with clothes, the exception being Pudding as her bag was instead filled with groceries since she would be missing the party in order to look after her siblings. "I never thought Ryou would be able to find it in his heart to let us take the afternoon off to buy our things for tomorrow."

"Glad to know I can still surprise you."

"Ahhh!" Ichigo was startled enough for her tail to pop out momentarily before she spun around. "Stop doing that!"

"Doing what?" Ryou asked nonchalantly, leaning against the wall.

"That creepy, sneaking up thing you do. I'll bet you Keiichiro would never do that to me, he's too much of a gentleman!"

"Too much of a gentleman to do what?" Keiichiro abruptly asked as he emerged from the kitchen, this time startling Ichigo enough to add the ears to her tail. When his only answer was a glare, he looked at the girls and motioned towards the kitchen. "Come on, ladies - I need some talented taste buds to test out some of the things I'm preparing for the party."

As the others headed into the kitchen, Ichigo yelled indignantly: "Well, at least I know Larry would never sneak up on me, he's too ni-AHA!" Ichigo yelled in triumph and quickly spun around, pointing accusingly at the spot where Larry was standing in...

...Only the space she was pointing at was completely unoccupied. Finger still outstretched, she blinked a few times, looking completely mystified at the wild card Murphy's Law had dealt her. In fact, she was still staring when Larry quietly walked up behind her, a plate of shortcake that he was bringing to her in hand. He tilted his head slightly, trying to see what was occupying her attention but when he saw nothing, he gently gripped her shoulder.

"Neko-chan?"

"NYA!" Ichigo shoved back right into him, shocked by his sudden grasp and as a result knocked the shortcake right into his face with a soft _splat_. Looking extremely apologetic, she grabbed a nearby napkin and tried to wipe off his face. "Larry, I'm so sorry, I didn't mean..."

He held up his hand, silencing her apology before turning his head towards the kitchen. "Keiichiro! It needs a bit more frosting by other than that it's perfect!"

"Noted!" Came the reply from the kitchen.

Ichigo handed him the napkin so he could clean himself off. "I'm sorry, Larry - I didn't realise it was you."

"It could be worse - at least it was just shortcake. We could have been working in a lab handling radioactive chemicals, and trust me, I had enough trouble finding a suit - I don't want to know how having six arms would affect that."

"Oh, so that's where you were?" Ichigo glanced back at the locker-room with a curious glint and an interested smile on her face. "Is it in there, can I see it?"

"Hmm...Okay, but only if I can see your dress."

"What?" Looking positively scandalised, Ichigo vehemently shook her head. "You can't do that! It's bad luck to see a girl in her dress before the event."

"But..." Confused, Larry sat down on the chair behind him. "...Isn't that only for weddings?"

"Who asked you to bring logic into this?"

"What can I say, I must be part-Vulcan."

"Part-what-now?" Now being the one sporting a confused look, Ichigo pulled out her own chair, crossing her arms over the back of it and resting her chin on them as she stared curiously at the older boy.

"You know, a Vulcan like Spock...On Star Trek? Captain Kirk, Scotty, Bones...Is any of this sounding familiar? I can do the 'Live long and prosper' salute if that would..." Larry trailed off as he heard someone snickering gleefully behind them, and turned to see Mint standing in the doorway with a smirk on her face. "What's so funny, feather-head?"

"Oh, nothing..." She said innocently as she strolled past them, pausing only to shoot a glance over her shoulder. "I just thought I should tell you to cover up, your fanboy's hanging out for everyone to see."

Her words brought a profuse blush to his face, and Larry glanced at Ichigo with a sheepish look on his face. "If that display made you change your mind about going with me, I'll understand."

"Don't worry about it," Ichigo tossed him a playful smile. "Somewhere deep in my closet is a Sailor Moon cosplay outfit."

"Irony is indeed a manifold mistress..."

-

Thursday came and went and finally the gang of Cafe Mew Mew found themselves at the magical time known as "Aaaah! There's only an hour left to get ready!" on that Friday evening. In the Momomiya household, Ichigo was sitting in a lump on her bed dressed in a beautiful open-back crimson dress and matching gloves and staring at her dresser, trying to decide which of the three perfumes perched on it to wear. Her gloved hand outstretched as she finally decided, her eyes abruptly saw the deep red and triggered a whole mess of worries.

"Oh, no...I never asked him what colour his suit was! What if we're completely mismatched tonight? And how are we getting there, are we walking, is he picking me up...Wait, doesn't he have a motorcycle? I can't ride that thing dressed like this!"

"Ichigo!"

"What is it, mom? I'm sort of busy!" Then, under her breath, she added: "...Busy freaking out."

"Alright, I was just wondering if you knew why there's a limo standing outside in the street busy honking its horn."

"Huh?" Surprised, the redhead rose to her feet and looked out the window. Down below, a young man chewing gum and with a chauffeur's cap cocked jauntily to the side was hanging out the window while pretty much leaning on the horn with his elbow. "Hey, people live here! How would you like it if I jammed that horn right up your...!"

The man looked up and waved the feral-looking girl's anger off before yelling back just as loudly: "Look, lady, I get paid by the hour so the longer you stay up there and yell, the bigger the bill I can stick Shirogane with. Still, I have to get you and some other guy to the party eventually, so do whatever it is you girls do to get ready and get down here."

_Stick Shirogane with the bill? Did Ryou send him?_

"Who's the other guy?"

"I dunno, he said you'd show me where he lives!"

"Alright, I'll be down in a minute!" It would seem Ryou's generous side was getting a work-out this week - it was nice to see every now and then that he had some humanity behind that cold exterior. Taking a final look at herself in the mirror, she spotted the bell Masaya had given her lying on the table. It would seem that in her rush, she had forgotten to put it on after getting out of the shower like she always did. Really, where was her head these days? Ichigo picked it up and motioned to put it on but hesitated for a moment. She wasn't sure why, but a part of her felt unsure about wearing it in his presence tonight. It was stupid, of course – he had seen her with it at work nearly every day and had once even asked where she had gotten it from. When told, he had gotten this odd look on his face, almost like…

_It looked like it had upset him…_

Staring at the bell, she contemplated on just leaving it at home – it might look a little odd when worn with a formal dress was her main reasoning, pushing away all other reasons that the annoying little voice in her head was trying to bring up. Still, it didn't quite feel right leaving it at home, so she compromised and slipped it inside her bag. That done, she gave herself a last look in the mirror before heading downstairs and out to the limo.

-

Over at Larry's house, things were going well and he was all suited-up and ready, except for one _tiny_ detail. "Stupid son-of-a...Why-oh-why couldn't they have given me one of those clip-on bow-ties? Wait, what...? Oh, come on! How can I get my fingers stuck? That's it, where are my scissors?"

Fuming, he stumbled into the kitchen and began digging through the cutlery drawer with his free hand, the other currently trapped in an exceptionally awkward position thanks to the mangled knot he had made of his tie. He just managed to track down the scissors when there was a knock at the door and he invited whoever it was inside with a very irritable tone of voice as he stood in front of the mirror, fully-prepared to snip off the offending piece of finery, dress code and social decorum be damned.

"You need some help with that?" An amused voice asked from behind him, and he let out a heavy-handed sigh to face Ichigo.

"Yeah, I…I…Ai-yi-yi…" His words trailed off into a mumbling mess as he took in his colleague standing before him. Having not seen her in anything except either of her uniforms or her Mew outfit, the effect was startling to say the least. "Wow…"

Suppressing her blushing as best she could, Ichigo curtsied playfully. "Do I suffice your needs for an escort tonight, kind sir?"

Larry laughed and bowed towards her as best he could with his arm still restricted. "You exceed them tenfold, milady. I can only hope I am suited as yours."

"Well…" Ichigo tilted her head to the side slightly, casting a seemingly critical eye at him before smiling brightly. "…I guess you'll do. Or at least you will once I fix that, come over here."

Feeling slightly foolish, Larry walked up to her and tried to find somewhere to place his eyes while she busied herself – he didn't want it to look like he had never seen a girl before. "How'd you get here? Oh, man, you didn't walk here, did you? I meant to come get you but…"

"Calm down, Larry, I'm the girl – I already fulfilled the freaking out quota for tonight. And no, I didn't walk, Ryou sent a limo for us. Quite a comfy one, though the driver leaves something to be desired. There, much better."

She stood back so Larry could get a chance to admire her handiwork in the mirror, his eyebrow raising a little as he poked the knot and it didn't immediately unfurl. "I am impressed."

"I thought you might be. Come on, we'd better get going before we push the envelope from 'fashionably late' into 'Lindsay Lohan on a Saturday'."

"Somehow I doubt Ryou will have enough liquor for us to do that impression justice," Larry mused, before abruptly remembering something and reaching behind the counter, pulling out a dozen or so red roses. "Here, this is for you. I tried to get yellow ones, but…Hehe, yeah, these are all they had."

"Larry, they're gorgeous!" Ichigo took them with a big smile before hugging him tightly.

"Ehehe…"

_Okay, boys, we've got brain death. Restarting in three, two, one…_

"I'm glad you like them," Larry said with a small smile before offering his arm to her. "Shall we?"

"It would be a waste of a good monkey suit otherwise," Ichigo laughed and linked her arm with his. "Not to mention the monkey in it."

"Yes, that's right," Came the deadpan reply as he led her out the house. "Make fun of the guy who's going to be bringing your drinks to you tonight."


End file.
